Anytime Fitness, currently located in the Charlestown Center on California Ave. S.W., is moving to the old Blockbuster Video spot in the Admiral District and plans to open up their expanded facility late this year, according to co-owner Andrew Saldana.

The Blockbuster lot (at the northwest corner of College and California)is currently used for pay parking after the video rental store shut down in early 2012.

Saldana, along with his brothers Daniel and Jacob, (all West Seattle natives) purchased Anytime Fitness in December of 2012. They also operate a Capitol Hill branch.

Andrew shared the story behind their move, which will result in a building about twice the size of their current location:

“My brother's, Daniel & Jacob and I were born and bred West Seattleites with a very strong sense of family and community. When we saw the opportunity to acquire the existing Anytime Fitness in West Seattle we did everything in our power to figure out how we can bring this to fruition... We made our dreams a reality in December and ever since that we've been figuring out how we can turn this struggling club around and really infuse a strong dose of community and family culture, which we feel we've done in our original club in Capitol Hill.

“We knew this would be no easy task, as the prior regime had neglected the club and members for the past several years. Our primary focus was to begin anew and for the past 6 months we've been in fierce negotiations with the leasing agent at the ex-Blockbuster location and we were dead set on making this the new home of our Anytime Fitness club."

Andrew said their target date for club transition is mid-December, with a grand opening celebration in mid-January.

The last time we spoke with Andrew, he was headed to Costa Rica to coach a Special Olympics team competing in international soccer. You can read more about that uplifting trip here.

One final side note, all three Saldana brothers claim their first jobs were delivering papers for the West Seattle Herald. We're glad to see they've come so far!