Two businesses — whose founders are married — must close after ownership of a building on Germantown and West Willow Grove avenues recently changed hands. 

According to public records, Balance Building LLC purchased 12 W. Willow Grove Ave. earlier this month. Christopher Plant, founder of Kismet Cowork, and Jessica Meeker, founder of Vitality Studio, announced that the two businesses will shut down as the result of this ownership change.

According to Meeker, this purchase was by Balance, a health and wellness studio located at 12 W. Willow Grove Ave. Meeker said the deal was “not expected.”

“It was pretty sudden,” Meeker said. “It’s been an emotional few weeks.”

The Local reached out to Balance and its owner, Amy Carolla, but did not receive a response by press time.

Closing a community

First opened 17 years ago, Vitality Studio offers both pilates and Gryotonic training, a series of circular exercises that work the body through muscular, skeletal, and cardiovascular stimulation. A team of instructors provides a range of classes and private sessions.

The studio will have its last day on July 15, with the last official instruction day on July 11. From noon-3 p.m. on July 12, the studio plans a farewell party.

Meeker said the main thing she will miss about Vitality Studio is her clients.

“A lot of people have been coming for 17 years,” Meeker said. “The community will be missed and I feel grateful to have been a part of it, to have helped create it, and to all the teachers and students over the years who have really made it special.”

The coworking model

The idea for Kismet came to Plant in 2016. While working as an agent for Elfant Wissahickon Realtors, Plant had unique insight into commercial real estate trends. One such trend caught his attention: coworking, an office model in which individuals and businesses operate in a shared space. Plant noticed that most of these spaces were in the downtown area of major cities — an obstacle those outside urban areas might avoid.

“There’s this ring of wealth and professionals on the outskirts of town that enjoy being a part of the city, but don’t necessarily want to go into it,” Plant said. “I wanted to create an environment where there was an active and engaged peer group that could learn from each other, and if I built a beautiful space, I thought that I could be at the center of something like that.”

Plant found a home for his business at 12 W. Willow Grove Ave., in a former self-storage facility. Construction began in 2016 and Kismet opened on April 1, 2017.

A nonprofitable pandemic

Kismet Cowork will close its doors on May 30. According to Plant, an entrepreneur with active ventures in the real estate and podcasting industries, this closure was brought about by the ownership change and lasting effects from the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Kismet suffered a hard blow. Plant said the business lost 90% of its revenue within 60 days.

“The pandemic was absolutely earth-shatteringly brutal to the coworking model, which is based on short term rentals,” Plant said. “The moment the pandemic happened, 90% of the people that were members ceased to be members, and we had no more revenue coming in the door. Keeping it alive bled me dry.”

Although more people returned to coworking following the worst of the pandemic, Plant said Kismet struggled to return to its former success. He transferred the business to the building’s landlord in June 2024. In early May of this year, the building’s ownership switched to Balance Building, LLC and Kismet was forced to close.

New endeavors

After many years of running a small business, Meeker said she does not have any future plans to move Vitality Studio this soon after the announcement of its closing.

As for Plant, since selling Kismet he has shifted focus to his audio production company. Radio Kismet, which he started before the pandemic. He now produces podcasts for clients such as the Franklin Institute and Mural Arts Philadelphia. In addition, he continues to work in real estate for Elfant Wissahickon and even made a documentary about a record collector that had a screening at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year.

Although Kismet is closing, Plant said he does not regret starting the business.

“I really wanted to make a space where people come together, pursue entrepreneurial endeavors, meet the other people in their community that were trying to do similar things, launch small businesses, and create something of value from nothing,” Plant said. “That’s what I wanted to do and I believe that, until the pandemic, that’s exactly what we were doing.”

Maggie Dougherty can be reached at margaret@chestnuthilllocal.com.