Staying Afloat with the Swim Club Sale

Swimming in debt and seeing no new tide of revenue coming in, officials have announced that they’ve decided to sell the .

Yet, they reiterated, the sale will not serve as a means to ease in and unwanted use on the site. It will be deed restricted, meaning the sale can only bring something recreational to the .

Such a sale involves navigating the waters of a public process first, though. That process begins with the crafting of an ordinance, making it legal and binding to dissolve the utility that mandated the township-owned club be self-sustaining and fee-supported.

Once the ordinance is adopted, will then hold a public auction to sell the property and facility.

The plan is to also make the property deed restricted to allow for only recreational uses.

“That’s the direction we’re moving in,” Mayor Tony Fiore said. “While looking for a management group to take over the club’s operation, we found that about a dozen different businesses expressed an interest in buying the club for some sort of related recreational use. The aim is to recover the debt service (accumulated from capital improvements to the club) and sell it for something that makes sense. We can’t recover the operational costs (since it was run as a fee-supported utility).”

Fiore said that officials tried to source a private entity to manage the club, to no avail.

One of those contenders was the YMCA, he said. Hope was lost for the township taking the management takeover route when the YMCA and few others that expressed an interest ultimately decided that the financial forecast of the venture looked too bleak.

“To me, this is the best case scenario for many reasons,” Fiore said. “We’ll end up with a new recreation facility that Middletown residents deserve. It’s also a win for all taxpayers to not have to carry the burden of the operation of a swim club and its structure as a private membership organization. This alternative will bring in a much better recreational facility that we can afford to provide and the owner will have the expertise to run it. And it will be open to all.”

Fiore said that while he and other officials are disappointed that it has gotten to the point of demise for the club, but they feel the foreseen benefits of this last ditch option outweigh the negatives.

The sale will at least keep recreational options afloat for residents, he said.

On the subject of the grassroots group rallying to save the club, he said that they also have the option of buying the club.

“Some just want to keep it a cabana club,” he said. “But that’s not going to happen unless someone, or a group, wants to buy it and keep it a cabana club.”

The Middletown Swim and Tennis Club, purchased by the township in 1997 for just over $1 million, houses 55 cabanas and 330 bathhouses. 

There are nearly 68,000 residents in Middletown.