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YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1969

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January 18, 1987 News 985-2131 Classified 986-6222 Distribution 986

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million facility.

Long-time member David Marsden said Thursday he has contacted at least a dozen displac- ed Park Plaza members to discuss what can be done to salvage the North Shore club.

“Everyone J spoke to said they would be willing to pay up to $0 per cent more in membership fees to help make the club viable,” Marsden said. ‘It’s a known fact that the cost of membership (at the Plaza) was about half what it is at other clubs, and it doesn’t take much sense to know that if you are a business and you are losing money and charging !ess than everyone else, then you have to raise your prices.*’

FINANCIAL FALL

Marsden added that at no time prior to revelation of the club’s fi- nancial problems was he asked by club ownership if he would be will- ing to pay more to help keep the Park Plaza alive.

Annual membership fees at the club were $400 for a single and $640 for a couple.

By comparison, an annual single membership for those aged 35 to 59 at the North Shore Winter Club, including court fees for an average of 80 doubles tennis court sessions, is $840; at the Lions Gate Racquets Club the same single membership works out to $740.

Annual prices for couples at the two clubs, with the same court fees, would be $1,288 and $1,280 respectively.

Park Plaza tennis club chairman Frank Nichols said Friday club members had urged Park Plaza ownership to start charging court fees to improve its financial situa- tion, “‘but we had no reply. There is the feeling that some other pur- pose was planned for the club.”

FACILITIES CLOSED

On Friday at 3:30 p.m. the club’s six squash, seven racquetball and seven tennis courts were closed along with its weight training room, sauna, pool, jacuzzi and aerobic exercise facilities.

MEMBERS OF the recently closed Park Plaza Country Club are banding together in an attempt to save the $1.4

The closure left 660 members without a club and 11 employees without a job.

Only Park Plaza’s ice rink, bar and banquet facilities will remain in operation.

The Capilano Physiotherapy Centre, which is located in the club’s complex, will also remain open for the time being.

The Park Plaza was placed in receivership June 13, following a court order that appointed the Thorne Riddell accounting firm (now Thorne, Ernst & Whinney) the property’s receiver-manager.

The mortgage on the 4.38-acre Park Plaza property is held by the Canada Trustco Mortgage Co., which, according to court docu- ments, is owed $2 million by the club.

JOB LOST

In the Jan. 9 News chronicling the impending Park Plaza closure, club general manager Az Ansari, who lost his job when the club closed Friday, said the North Shore community, especially the children involved in the club’s various programs, would be the biggest loser if the facility closed permanently.

He said his major concern was that the property was destined for redevelopment as residential hous- ing.

But North Vancouver District Mayor Marilyn Baker has said any redevelopment of the site would be carefully scrutinized before any rezoning changes would be consid- ered,

No one at Thorne Riddell was available for comment on what had been done to keep the club from closing or on the fate of the Park Plaza property to press time Friday, but company spokesman Robert Cobb said in a previous in- terview the company had tried un- successfully to increase club membership and make it a finan- cially viable operation.

1337 60 pages 25¢

mpt to save doomed country club

Here come the brides PAGE 15

history recalled PAGE 39

NEWS photo Terry Paters

A CORMORANT suns itself on a rock near Siwash Rock by the Stanley Park Seawall. Those of us lucky enough to live in the Lower Mainland have been enjoying sunny weather for most of the week.