Swimmers still holding their breath to find out if Wellness Complex will rebuild pool

LACONIA — It has been about four months since a fire caused the closure of The Wellness Complex, and club manager George Kalil said it remains unclear if the business will be able to reopen.

The sudden closure has been disruptive to many, as The Wellness Complex — which was started as a YMCA and later operated as the Laconia Athletic and Swim Club — is the only exercise facility in the region to offer a semi-Olympic-sized lap pool.

The pool also factors into the reason why the facility remains closed.

The Wellness Complex has been closed since Nov. 24, when a fire apparently ignited somewhere in the ceiling above the pool.

The ceiling over the pool was a more complicated structure than might immediately be presumed. There was the metal roof, said Kalil, wooden elements, insulation and other materials in between.

“The roof collapsed into the pool, and the pool flooded the whole gym,” Kalil said. “It created a huge mess and a huge problem.”

In the months since the fire, staff have had several contractors come through to provide estimates, and though the fire was limited to the pool area, it’s clear the flood damage is more pervasive. Carpets will need replacing, floorboards are lifting up in some areas, even the rubber flooring might have to be replaced.

The good news, though, is the building remains largely sound, structurally, thanks in part to the 1950s cinder block construction.

“We’ve had all these contractors come in, they know how much it’s going to cost to clean up, they can give us a vague estimate of how much it’s going to cost to reconstruct, but they can’t give us an exact price,” Kalil said. Company staff are currently in the process of trying to ascertain that precise figure to see if their insurance coverage will enable them to rebuild.

“It’s not an impossible venture, but it’s a long road ahead,” Kalil said. He said it would be “overly optimistic” to start talking about a timeline for reconstruction, though he also made repeated assurances that reconstruction was the intention of himself and the company’s owner.

“We are still doing our absolute best to make it work,” Kalil said.

Motivating the business to re-open is more than a half-century of business history. Owners and corporate identities have come and gone, but the facility has offered the same basic business plan for 67 years. At one point, during its Laconia Athletic and Swim Club era, the club had 1,500 members. It was closed for several years, purchased by the current owner in 2017, and reopened as The Wellness Complex just prior to the pandemic. Kalil said the club had a membership of around 500 at the time of the fire, and there is plenty of room for the business to grow.

“This place is time-tested,” he said. “If we’re able to get it reopened, we know that it has all the potential in the world to be very successful. We are looking forward to pushing through this.”

More than exercise

Members who were interested in a place to exercise have several other options, with other fitness businesses of various sizes and amenities operating in the area. None, though, have a lap pool, which has sent local swim teams scrambling as far as Plymouth or Concord to find open lanes.

There’s another group which has been bereft by the fire: senior citizens who found The Wellness Complex to be important to their health.

Cheryl Baker of Meredith is one of those elder exercisers. She joined the gym in September 2023, when she started making several trips into Laconia each week to accompany her husband on medical appointments.

“I started swimming laps,” she said, then realized her membership included classes, so she started attending water Zumba and other water exercise classes, then added some dry land classes, such as strength and flexibility, and yoga.

“Those classes were full,” she noted. While those members came for a workout, they found the benefits were broader, Baker said.

“When you get any group of people together on a regular basis, social bonds arise,” Baker said. “It’s not just for fitness, it’s for the mind as well as the body.”

JoAnn Gou is another Wellness Complex member who is missing the pool as well as the fellow members. Gou had been a visitor to Laconia for 30 years, then moved to the city in 2020 to help care for her mother. She joined the gym because, at the time, the only people she knew in the city were her relatives.

“I thought it would be a great place to get out, do things and meet some people,” Gou said. “And it turned out to be a wonderful thing, it was a whole community of people. Not only was it going there in the morning, somebody would say, ‘Let’s get together for lunch,’ or we’d go to The Colonial, little side trips.”

The Wellness Complex, Gou said, “gave me an opportunity to appreciate Laconia.”

In the months since, the regular pool users have tried to stay in touch, and will organize small groups to meet up at other local pools, such as at Steele Hill Resort. One of the instructors from The Wellness Complex offers aquarobics classes at The Margate at 9 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but between the daily pool fee and the instructor’s fee, it costs more to attend two classes than it did to pay for a month’s membership at the club.

“I really feel like, since this fitness instructor, Kathy, went out of her way to create something, I try to go,” Gou said, but she can’t attend as often as she’d like due to budgetary concerns.

“I feel that the city of Laconia has really lost an asset,” Gou said. “It’s like the rug has been pulled out from underneath me. It was my social activity, I made so many friends through that it was amazing.”