When the Covid pandemic hit, in 2020, rental and condo communities across the country had to slam the doors on their fitness centers. Now that things are opening up, we wanted to see what’s new in fitness centers since we last visited this topic (Fitness Centers Go for Wellness, Fall 2018).
Who better to bring us up to date than Karl Smith, DHEd, EIM, Fitwel Ambassador, Director of Resident Experience at multifamily developer/owner Cortland? Following are valuable tips from “Dr. Fitness,” as he is called.
1. The big buzz in fitness: “gamification.” Smith said Peloton, the home exercise equipment manufacturer, turned fitness into a game, especially for Gen Z and Millennial residents. “They’re into the gamification of fitness,” he said. “They want to have fun when they’re working out, and they want to talk to their friends about it.”
Just before the company went public, in September 2019, Peloton stopped supplying multifamily properties with new equipment. Its acquisition of Precor in April 2021 created a new division that supplies rental and condo communities with a commercial version of Peloton equipment. Competitors include Echelon (exercise bicycles) and Aviron (rowing machines), said Smith.
Cortland is also installing “mirror” equipment in its gyms. “There’s a screen where you see yourself working out,” said Smith. Popular brands: Mirror, Tempo Studio, and Tonal.
2. The best spot for your fitness center. “The number one best place is to be as close to the leasing office as possible,” said Smith. “The fitness center is a marketing tool. When you take prospects on a tour, you want all your high-end amenities—the gym, the fire pit, the pool—as close to the leasing office as possible so they can see everything in a short period of time and make that commitment to sign the lease.”
3. Safety first on equipment. Cortland uses “selectorized” fitness rigs—resistance machines that have limits on the amount of weight and range of motion the user can employ, so no spotter is needed. “That greatly reduces the odds of a resident getting injured from using our equipment,” said Smith. “Safety is built into everything we do in the gym.”
4. Dump the group classroom. “Chances are you’re going to have one class a day, so that’s 23 hours where it’s not occupied,” said Smith. “When we’re renovating a gym, the first thing we do is take that wall down and turf the floor.” That creates a more inviting space where tenants can work out on their own using accessories like medicine balls and dumbbells and fitness-on-demand programs like Wexer and Wellbeats.
5. Don’t try to meet everyone’s fitness needs. “We cater to a small percentage of our residents,” said Smith. “Seventy-five percent of our tenants say they want a fitness center, but only 10-25% will actually use it.” His research shows that one-fourth of Cortland tenants have a private gym membership; another quarter have no interest in fitness. “We market the service, but we do not expect everyone to use it,” said Smith.
6. Know your fitness target. “You have to identify who you’re building this fitness center for, and you have to have that person in mind every time you build one,” said Smith.
7. The sweet spot: novice exercisers. “They’re active, but they’re not going to be heavy lifters,” said Smith. “They’re going to ask questions about how to work out, which gives us an opportunity to teach about how to use the equipment properly.”
Smith said Cortland has at least one trained “wellness champion” staff member on site, as well as instructional signage showing how to use the equipment. Through a partnership with Valet Living, Cortland brings a trainer to the site two or three times a week for a couple of hours.
Dr. Fitness’s Magical Fitness Facility Space Allocation Formula
How big should your fitness center be? Smith has developed a reliable formula for determining minimum square footage for a typical Cortland rental project, based on the number of rental units:
Minimum square footage = # of units x 1.45 x 0.35 x 0.60 ÷ 5 x 50
For a 300-unit complex, that would be: 300 x 1.45 = 435 x 0.35 = 152.25 x 0.60 = 91.35 ÷ 5 = 18.27 x 50 = 913.5 s.f.
Try it against your own estimate or rule of thumb.
Related Stories
| Mar 22, 2011
Mayor Bloomberg unveils plans for New York City’s largest new affordable housing complex since the ’70s
Plans for Hunter’s Point South, the largest new affordable housing complex to be built in New York City since the 1970s, include new residences for 5,000 families, with more than 900 in this first phase. A development team consisting of Phipps Houses, Related Companies, and Monadnock Construction has been selected to build the residential portion of the first phase of the Queens waterfront complex, which includes two mixed-use buildings comprising more than 900 housing units and roughly 20,000 square feet of new retail space.
| Mar 17, 2011
Perkins Eastman launches The Green House prototype design package
Design and architecture firm Perkins Eastman is pleased to join The Green House project and NCB Capital Impact in announcing the launch of The Green House Prototype Design Package. The Prototype will help providers develop small home senior living communities with greater efficiency and cost savings—all to the standards of care developed by The Green House project.
| Mar 11, 2011
Renovation energizes retirement community in Massachusetts
The 12-year-old Edgewood Retirement Community in Andover, Mass., underwent a major 40,000-sf expansion and renovation that added 60 patient care beds in the long-term care unit, a new 17,000-sf, 40-bed cognitive impairment unit, and an 80-seat informal dining bistro.
| Mar 11, 2011
Mixed-income retirement community in Maryland based on holistic care
The Green House Residences at Stadium Place in Waverly, Md., is a five-story, 40,600-sf, mixed-income retirement community based on a holistic continuum of care concept developed by Dr. Bill Thomas. Each of the four residential floors houses a self-contained home for 12 residents that includes 12 bedrooms/baths organized around a common living/social area called the “hearth,” which includes a kitchen, living room with fireplace, and dining area.
| Mar 11, 2011
Texas A&M mixed-use community will focus on green living
HOK, Realty Appreciation, and Texas A&M University are working on the Urban Living Laboratory, a 1.2-million-sf mixed-use project owned by the university. The five-phase, live-work-play project will include offices, retail, multifamily apartments, and two hotels.
| Mar 1, 2011
How to make rentals more attractive as the American dream evolves, adapts
Roger K. Lewis, architect and professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, writes in the Washington Post about the rising market demand for rental housing and how Building Teams can make these properties a desirable choice for consumer, not just an economically prudent and necessary one.
| Feb 15, 2011
New Orleans' rebuilt public housing architecture gets mixed reviews
The architecture of New Orleans’ new public housing is awash with optimism about how urban-design will improve residents' lives—but the changes are based on the idealism of an earlier era that’s being erased and revised.
| Feb 11, 2011
Chicago high-rise mixes condos with classrooms for Art Institute students
The Legacy at Millennium Park is a 72-story, mixed-use complex that rises high above Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The glass tower, designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, is mostly residential, but also includes 41,000 sf of classroom space for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and another 7,400 sf of retail space. The building’s 355 one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom condominiums range from 875 sf to 9,300 sf, and there are seven levels of parking. Sky patios on the 15th, 42nd, and 60th floors give owners outdoor access and views of Lake Michigan.
| Feb 11, 2011
Sustainable community center to serve Angelinos in need
Harbor Interfaith Services, a nonprofit serving the homeless and working poor in the Harbor Area and South Bay communities of Los Angeles, engaged Withee Malcolm Architects to design a new 15,000-sf family resource center. The architects, who are working pro bono for the initial phase, created a family-centered design that consolidates all programs into a single building. The new three-story space will house a resource center, food pantry, nursery and pre-school, and administrative offices, plus indoor and outdoor play spaces and underground parking. The building’s scale and setbacks will help it blend with its residential neighbors, while its low-flow fixtures, low-VOC and recycled materials, and energy-efficient mechanical equipment and appliances will help it earn LEED certification.
| Feb 11, 2011
Apartment complex caters to University of Minnesota students
Twin Cities firm Elness Swenson Graham Architects designed the new Stadium Village Flats, in the University of Minnesota’s East Bank Campus, with students in mind. The $30 million, six-story residential/retail complex will include 120 furnished apartments with fitness rooms and lounges on each floor. More than 5,000 sf of first-floor retail space and two levels of below-ground parking will complete the complex. Opus AE Group Inc., based in Minneapolis, will provide structural engineering services.
