The popular Swim Gym aquatic sports program has moved its base of operations from Virginia Key to a lakeside location in South Miami-Dade County near Cutler Bay.
Company vice president Jonathan Strauss says the City of Miami raised the rent on their old headquarters near the Miami Marine Stadium, so they had to find a new base of operations for the family business.
Strauss’ father, Robert Strauss, a 1972 Olympic swimmer and coach at the University of Miami and Ransom Everglades School, started Swim Gym as a swim school more than 25 years ago. It has slowly evolved and expanded into a complete aquatic sports program.
“In 1994, we started the first version of the Swim Gym Aquatic Sports Camp,” said Strauss. “It was a camp that specialized in all aquatic sports. Today, it has evolved into a camp that teaches you how to wakeboard, how to water ski, how to swim, sail, kayak, canoe, fish, kite surf, paddleboard, water polo – everything that you can think of to have fun with water.”
Strauss says the new Swim Gym location is on a large fresh water lake south of Cutler Bay, at 10350 SW 232 St. He says it suits their needs perfectly.
“It’s a beautiful lake,” he said. “It’s just perfect for us. It’s safer than the old location because it’s an enclosed area, and we can build and expand the vision of what the aquatic sports complex is on a year-round basis.”
Strauss agrees that the move to the new location may hinder the Swim Gym business in the short term, but he says the move will be a good one in the long term.
“This is such a perfect facility for the vision we have,” he said. “We’re going to install Miami’s first cable wake board park; it’s a huge craze across the country. It eliminates the use of boats and gas because it operates on electric power and uses towers and cables to pull the boarders.”
Strauss says Swim Gym will be up and running in time for summer camp, which is just around the corner.
“We plan to be open for summer camp,” he said. “We are now taking enrollment for our summer camp, which begins on June 15. The camp runs for eight weeks, from June 15 to August 13, but we take the Fourth of July week off so everybody can go on vacation. We have three-week sessions, two-week sessions and one-week sessions.”
Parents drop off their children at 9 a.m. and then pick them up at 3:30 p.m. Camp cost is $350-$400 a week.
For more information, call 305-273-1120 or go to www.swimgym.net.
