Ugly Award: The Racquetballer

The vacant Racquetballer off Interline and Drusilla Lane is an eyesore of yesteryear.

All around it suburban progress throbs: shopping center renovations on Drusilla, new professional offices, thriving restaurants. But time has stood still in this ’70s-era fitness spot in the ’burbs.

Its once immaculate white sheen has grayed, and a generation of graffiti bandits has marked this vacant building as theirs. A red logo facing Interstate 12 is barely legible from the road, and sodden phone books and trash are scattered around the marshy yard, which breeds swarms of mosquitoes and gnats.

First opened sometime around the late 1970s or early 1980s, The Racquetballer operated for two or three years, says Mark Cramer of 4 Real Estate, the Realtor trying to find a new life for the building. The original owners did have other ideas after their racquetball club failed, but those faded like the stenciled action shots on the exterior walls.

Cramer came upon the building when he was looking to “put some wow in the market.”

“The challenge is the building is unique in its structure,” Cramer says. To be used in the future, “it will have to go through some pretty dramatic remodeling.”

Though the building wasn’t on the market when Cramer discovered it, a deal is in the works, which makes neighboring businesses exhale with relief.

So what took so long?

“The problem is that it’s a wonderful location,” says Cramer, “but people don’t look at Interline as a valuable commodity anymore.”