Most Viewed / Grand Opening: New gym to open in Scappoose

Peak Performance owner Ryan Marsh said he wants to offer a premium gym to residents of Columbia County.

For fitness fanatics in Scappoose, St. Helens, and traversing Highway 30, a new gym is opening at 51581 Columbia River Highway in Scappoose.

Peak Performance will open its Scappoose location on June 1. Peak Performance is a Portland area gym, athletic club & fitness center with two locations in Portland, and the Scappoose gym will be its third installment.

Ryan Marsh owns Peak Performance, and the Scappoose location arose from Marsh noticing the vacant Sears building off Highway 30 when he drove up to visit his parents in St. Helens.

"Basically, my parents live in St. Helens. So, every weekend, every other weekend, periodically, we’d go out there for barbecues, and we just kept seeing the same place sitting empty for years, and so I finally just went online to see who had it listed, and reached out," Marsh said.

Marsh was drawn to the location because it's central to the area and was the "perfect size to serve this community." Marsh's goal with Peak Performance is to offer "premiere functional fitness." The large space offers a full range of free weights, machines that isolate muscle groups, various squat racks, lifting platforms, and more than 40 cardio machines.

In addition to giving members a full array of exercise options, Marsh also wants the facility and its amenities to give the customers the best quality they can. Peak Performance offers a locker room with showers and a sauna for its members. The facility also offers classes that are open to members, with the cost being included in the membership. Group and personal trainers are also available, with an extra cost for those individualized services.

"We want people to use the facilities, use the locker rooms, and feel like they’re at a spa when they’re using those facilities, so it's even elevated from their experience at home," Marsh said.

Peak Performance offers a variety of exercising opportunities, from free weights to cardio machines.

Family Business

Opening a gym in Columbia County has a personal connection for Marsh as well. Brad Marsh, Ryan's father, used to own Columbia River Athletic Club in Columbia City. Ryan Marsh wanted to bring a gym to the region to "revitalize" the relationship with the community.

Getting the project together has taken a lot of work for Marsh and his family. While the original plan was to open the facility in October 2022, there were many steps that needed to be taken to secure the applications and change of use permits. Marsh said that working through a lot of the permitting process and working with engineers to maximize the facility's utility has been complex.

One of the special things about this new project has been the involvement of Marsh's family in getting the building to its opening. Ryan Marsh got emotional as he spoke about the way his family came together around the project.

"I’m a contractor, my oldest brother's a contractor, my dad's a contractor. All separate licenses. But I was thinking the other day, every single one of my seven brothers, it's overwhelming because everyone's kind of stepped in to help and be part of building it out," Marsh said. "That's really special to me, to have every single one of my brothers be part of the development of the space, and have touched and built it."

Building a community

Marsh's process has been grueling, and he said he's been thankful for the support. Marsh has been working on dialing in all the facility's components so that it's ready for day one of opening. Marsh said they have overbuilt the facility with the hope of growing into it in the months and years after opening.

Marsh said Columbia County is a growing community, and he hopes this gym will grow as the County does in the coming years. Marsh also thinks the gym's proximity to Highway 30 will also get people through the door. But most importantly, Marsh hopes the gym will bring value to the community, and the gym members are ultimately the essential piece.

"There's 30,000 people that commute down Highway 30 every single day. We’re looking to service a broad region of people," Marsh said. "The gym doesn't make it a gym; it's the members that make it a gym. And that's just how it evolves because you can start to see a community form, and that's what we hope out of each of our gyms, is that there's a strong sense of community, a strong sense of camaraderie of people who want to build and work out together."

With opening around the corner, Marsh wanted the community to be aware of some promos that the gym has in conjunction with its opening. The first 250 people to sign up will get a "founding member" tee shirt and those first 250 people will also be entered into a raffle for an electric bicycle.

Memberships are $55 a month if you buy a yearly pass and $69 a month if you are paying on a month-by-month basis. Membership gives full access to all amenities and equipment.

For more information, visit https://peakperformancepdx.com/services/.

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