I mentioned this in passing last week, and I figured a follow-up was in order.
38 Elm Street just spent $325,000 on their fitness centre, and it’s probably the best in the city of Toronto…
I thought of a number of different ways to write this blog post.
At first, I thought I’d show the photos and sort of feign, “Don’t you wish a real gym like that of GoodLife could be on your doorstep?” Then reveal that this is in fact a gym in a condominium. But I think the point gets across better if you first try and picture some of the miserable, dingy, little gyms that are in some downtown Toronto condos, then picture the really good ones, and finally look at the photos below.
I’ve been in over one-hundreds condo gyms, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this before.
38 Elm Street is a 22-year-old building with 1-year-old amenities, and it’s looking sharp!
The condominium corporation won a settlement with the old property management company, and they wondered, “How should we put this money to use?”
Many of today’s condominium corporations are so concerned about the “Reserve Fund” that they salt away every penny and never see the forest through the trees; that is, the money in the reserve is there to be spent, especially as the building ages.
My trip to 38 Elm Street was absolutely eye-opening.
Here are some of the highlights of the gym:
First and foremost, they have dumbells up to 75’s. Most guys complain that “condo gyms” don’t have heavy enough free-weights, but I haven’t gone above 75’s for years, and I’m still haunted by that ill-fated day at McMaster when I blew out my rotator-cuff doing shoulder presses with 85’s. For some reason, I thought it was a contest…
They have a squat-machine, Smith-machine, and even cable-crossovers (not shown). My own GoodLife doesn’t even have cable crossovers!
I miss the YMCA up at Bayview/Sheppard. Man, summer of 1999, I was rocking that gym like nobody’s business…..driving my Mom’s 1985 Buick Electra, listening to the cassette-deck, tons of gel in my hair, thick silver chain around my neck….
….sorry, I got off track there. Nothing jogs the memory like cable-crossovers…
They have a couple of new stationary bikes, but they also have a section with these state-of-the-art spinning cycles that you’d expect to find at Pure Fitness or Gold’s Gym, but not in your condo!
They have SIX treadmills, including two brand new ones that (not shown) have high-definition TV (50 channels?), news-ticker, weather, iPod dock, and other features I’ve never seen before.
Yoga area, stretching bar, abs mats, exercise balls, bosu balls, medicine balls – all in abundance.
This is what impressed me the most: TRX Training. This is something new that not all gyms have, but here we have it in a condo gym! If I wasn’t such a creature of habit, I’d try TRX training. Instead, I’m going to do the same stuff I’ve been doing for 12 years, and continue to grow old and gross…
Almost as impressive as the equipment is the facility itself.
I’ve never seen one of these motion-activated, filtered-water thingamajiggee’s.
I’m sure environmentalists love the lack of paper cups…
As every gym should, but doesn’t, this gym has a defibrillator.
Oh wait, it has TWO!
And keeping with the “attention to detail” theme, how about a giant clock that displays seconds, so you can count between sets.
When I was a juice-monkey back at Mac in ’98, I used to wait 5 1/2 minutes in between some sets of bench press. How insane is that? It was all about power lifting! As I said, I thought it was a contest…
Nota bene: I throw “juice monkey” around loosely. Don’t take that literally, ie. steroids. I was too busy eating 600 grams of ground beef in a pan with no vegetables, all in the pursuit of more muscle!
Alright, as you can tell, it’s been tough to keep my focus on the condo at 38 Elm Street, and away from my memory-bank, which is being ransacked like Banku de Greece will be very shortly…
But seeing a whopping $325,000 renovation to the gym in a 22-year-old condominium is something I’ve never seen before in Toronto.
As I said last week – I don’t have a listing in this building, or any vested interest. I just think it’s worth reporting, and it opens discussion to the burning question: do you see the value in this gym?
The whole idea behind the money that was spent was to increase the appeal of the building, and try and “keep up,” if you will, with newer, flashier developments.
I was there at 11am on a Wednesday morning, and there were 3-4 people working out. This gym gets a LOT of use!
Not pictured above is a large area for skipping (or jumping jacks…), a slew of weight machines, a multi-use machine that you see in most gyms, several flat/incline benches positioned perfectly in front of tri-fold mirrors, and not that you can take a photo of it – but the whole room is sound-proofed.
I can honestly say that as a former gym-rat, now turned atypical-30-something lazy-weight-lifter, I could use this gym to satisfy all my needs in place of a Pure Fitness, GoodLife, et al.
However, this gym does NOT have a stairmaster, so how the heck would I be able to read the Globe & Mail?
ABB
at 7:33 am
My condo has NO gym. So my membership at Extreme is my only option. Obviously with their new gym, this building’s residents can save a lot on memberships, so the value is huge.
Some extra details please — I assume they have a pool and wet facilities also? Did that total $325k include HST and designers, etc.? or did they design it themselves? How bad was their old 20 yr old gym? Must have been a real dump, thus giving them insperation for better.
David the key question is perhaps: how many urban condo shoppers are swayed by top quality common facilities? Or do they just focus on granite and stainless? If you had a listing there, would you be using the fitness room as a top feature in your description — and would buyers be attracted?
Jonnathan Bravo
at 8:29 am
When I was looking at condos a few years back, the first thing I asked to see when i entered a building was the gym. It gave me an indication of the overall quality of a building. Also, it was the most important facility for me. The savings can be huge when you have a nice gym and it sure does get used daily by people like me. What a beautiful facility! In the spring when I move back downtown after selling my house, I will do the exact same thing, looking at the gym first.
George
at 10:03 am
You could afford beef back then? Protein powder all the whey!
I wish my condo’s gym had free weights and a power rack. It’s strange that most gyms would rather buy machines than free weights, considering how much more expensive it is to purchase and maintain the machines.
Vlad
at 10:14 am
Great post, David.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. “Old and gross.” LOL
I can guarantee you that a quality gym definitely adds real value to a condo. The savings on the cost of memberships for my wife and me are huge. I use the gym in our building 3 days a week like clockwork. Ours is also very nice, even though the building is 25 years old. It even has dumbells up to 65 lb. At one point just this past Wednesday there were 7 resdidents using the gym facilities, so I’m not the only who sees the value in it.
AsianSensation
at 11:19 am
$325K seems like alot for new equipment and a refresh. From the pictures I can’t see it being worth more than $50K at most. Who did the reno? The TDSB????
Regardless, that gym would tempt me to cancel my membership… so long as things don’t get too crowded.
Oren
at 8:40 am
You live In a bubble if you think that gym would cost 50k. You have no idea how expensive these machines are. FYI, one of those treadmills costs about 10k.
ScottyP
at 10:05 am
I was just about to say, try 50K per photo.
AsianSensation
at 10:14 am
Give me a break!
Hex dumbells are a buck a pound. Throw in there maybe $300 per bench and a $1000 per commercial bike and you’ll still have room in there for a few $10K treadmills.
Don’t get me wrong, it looks great. But not $325K worth of great.
ABB
at 1:35 pm
The story is about the renovation, not the equipping. Obviously by the look, it was a total re-do of the space, $300k worth. Equipment is a fraction of the construction cost. If David provided a sweeping panorama photo, I’m pretty sure that would capture the work that was done.
MY
at 12:03 pm
I would be interested in knowing how the maintenance fees are compared to other buildings – are they paying through the nose for this fancy gym?
ABB
at 4:11 pm
It was paid through reserve fund, not operating (read Dave’s comments again) and therefore was not paid from operating budget for current or future years.
There are over 400 suites in that building, so a large and well developed exercise facility is going to be used well by many people.