Joe Shank, 87, is showing me around Almaden Valley Athletic Club at Camden and Kooser, the facility he opened 50 years ago.
“We’re just as vibrant now as we were when we started,” he says, as we walk outside to the pool area, where seniors are taking an aqua fitness class.
Shank moves just fine for his age. We go up and down stairs, in and out of several spaces, all throughout the sprawling complex, which has relentlessly evolved, expanded and adapted to the changing times for half a century.
For example, in what used to be a parking lot near Kooser, the club now includes a 7,600-square-foot outdoor fitness area, right underneath massive solar panels. The city’s byzantine permitting bureaucracy wouldn’t allow Shank to construct a brand-new fitness center on the parking lot, adding all the infrastructure components that came with it, so he changed course while retaining some of the parking.
“That’s what prompted us to put in solar and build this,” he says, pointing to the outdoor gym area, where several members are putting in their time on hi-tech machines while ESPN plays on televisions, all outside. The natural air flows right in and through. It was a great idea.
“So the benefit is that not only do we save energy, we have a fitness center and we have good parking and EV chargers,” Shank says.
Shank is always fielding questions about business advice and how he stayed in the game for so long. I’m certainly not the first one to pepper him with this stuff. Without missing a beat, he says people are the most important thing.
“I have five managers that have been with us, two of them 22 years, and one 25 years, and two 35 years,” he tells me, trying to calculate the years in his head. “And they’re all key managers. They started in the business office or at the front desk and worked up to the key positions.”
It seems logical, but another piece of advice is to put everything back into the operation. You’d be surprised how many places don’t do that, he says.
“Continue to reinvest in your business, your facilities, your people and your programs,” Shank says. “I think cleanliness is very important too. For example, we have around-the-clock cleaning, unlike most facilities.”
He’s right. The whole place is spic and span as we saunter around. There’s an entire indoor swimming school for kids, plus daycare, tennis, a ninja zone, Pilates and a new outdoor bar for the adults. The club has an all-inclusive resort feel to it, but without the hammered vacationers.
Adapting to the trends is also important, Shank adds. Of course, they now have pickleball, I see, as we continue to navigate the complex.
“We’ve been first to do many, many things in the industry in our area,” Shank says, pointing to the pickleball courts, built in 2022. “We’re the first club to have them, but it came to early fitness equipment in the ‘90s when we converted to a fitness center. We’re one of the first people to buy a StairMaster and have step aerobics. So staying ahead of the trends and keeping up with the trends I think is really important.”
At the moment, AVAC employs more than 170 people, which generally increases to more than 200 during summer. The club has over 3,600 members. As of right now, the swim school alone teaches more than 2,300 students.
Forty-five years ago, I was one of those students. I couldn’t swim at all, I couldn’t even tread water, the other kids made fun of me, and it definitely contributed to my alienation in what was then a dismal suburban wasteland, but these days, I never even think about it.
The club is thriving. This Saturday, May 30, a grand-scale 50th anniversary party, catered by Le Papillon, is completely sold out. Shank has quite a bit of memories on which to reflect.
“I never dreamed of 50 years,” he said, as we concluded our tour in the cafe area, where I slammed a double espresso. “I mean, you don’t think that far ahead, but the journey’s been, most people would say, long,” he says with a smile. “I’ve enjoyed every bit of it.”
