Downtown Pittsburgh's Rivers Club makes over for modern look

For more than 30 years, getting off the elevator on the dining floor of the Rivers Club in Downtown took members to a bygone era.

The dark atmosphere and wood decor gave that entrance through the club's bar area a feeling of being in the “first class club on the Titanic,” said member Jared Sullivan, 36. “It was very old-fashioned.”

Today, visitors and members find a bright foyer with long tables for gathering, surrounded by smaller glass-enclosed rooms for meetings, modern-looking dining areas, and a well-lit lounge. The design is contemporary, similar to what diners find in most of the restaurants that have opened in the surrounding city over the past few years.

“You walk in now and see it, it's night and day. To say it was dated was kind,” said Sullivan, a certified public accountant at Downtown firm Sisterson & Co. who leads the club's young executive council.

The change is the most noticeable result of a $4 million renovation that wrapped up last month and was aimed at marketing the private club that takes up three floors of One Oxford Centre to a wider and younger audience.

“We've got to appeal to that younger generation, the millennials, but we still need to appeal to the baby boomers and not go over the top,” the club's general manager, Jack Kimbell, said during a recent tour of the facilities. “I think we hit the mark.”

Founded in 1983 and owned by Dallas-based ClubCorp, the club charges members monthly fees to use its athletic facilities, to dine there or to have business meetings. Nonmembers can attend certain functions such as weddings in its ballrooms or events on special nights, or as a guest of a member.

Membership starts with a $500 initiation (which has been temporarily reduced to $100) and then a monthly fee that varies based on whether the member uses just the dining areas or also the athletic facilities, and his or her age.

The Rivers Club has always been a little more open than other traditional private clubs. About half its members are women.

“It's significant to remember we were all-inclusive from the beginning. Not all clubs were,” said Dotti Bechtol, 62, of O'Hara, a member for 25 years and chair of the club's Board of Governors. “As a woman, it was nice to know I could be accepted.”

The renovations of the meeting areas, dining rooms, lounge and parts of the gym areas were part of what ClubCorp calls “reinventions” at some of the more than 200 facilities it owns or operates. They are aimed at expanding interest among a wider audience and boosting membership that has fallen in the non-golf club sector known as business, sports and alumni clubs.

Membership nationwide has struggled to recover from the last recession, falling to an average of 741 per club from a high in 2004 of 847, according to data from the Club Managers Association of America.

Across ClubCorp's business, sports and alumni clubs, membership in June was down 1.4 percent from the year before to 54,971, according to the company's most recent financial filings. Second-quarter revenue was up 2.2 percent over the same period last year to $46.5 million.

The Rivers Club has 1,515 members, an increase of about 25 members over the past two months, Kimbell said. He declined to provide revenue figures.

The reinvention was just one part of the drive to increase membership and revenue at the club. Kimbell, who managed the club from 1984 to ‘91, returned three years ago with the goal of modernizing the operation.

“We were becoming a dinosaur,” he said of private clubs in general. “That older model is broken.”

The new model includes a greater emphasis on quality dining and specialty events.

“One of the most valuable people in the city is a good cook,” Kimbell said, noting the increased competition among new restaurants in town.

Chefs will come out of the kitchen at the club's “hearth”-themed pub to demonstrate how they cook certain meals. Wine tastings, coffee events and live music nights that are open to the public have generated more interest, Kimbell said.

The club also is now open at night Monday-Friday, which was not true when Kimbell returned. He said he is trying to make the club more welcoming to more potential members.

“A lot of people are intimidated when you say ‘private club,'” Sullivan said. “It's not exclusive. We want people to come and network, to be engaged and meet people. It is a good chance of meeting people and expanding your contacts.”

David Conti is the assistant business editor at the Tribune-Review. Reach him at 412-388-5802 or dconti@tribweb.com.