by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
The “coming soon” sign has been up since October, but the Gold’s Gym in the Jacksonville Bank building really will be here soon, according to co-owner Kris Crieger.
Crieger said the gym should be open by March, depending on when the building permits come through.
“If we can get permitting by the end of the month, we can build this sucker pretty fast,” he said.
Crieger and the five other partners involved in the gym have held the lease for the 20,000 square-foot space since October and have been waiting for their building permits since then.
Once completed, the gym will take up much of the first floor and all of the second floor. Currently, the space is vacant so minimal demolition work will have to be done before construction begins.
Though most of the gym’s amenities will be on the second floor, Crieger said the first floor will include the member’s entrance and several non-member accessible features such as a smoothie bar, hair salon, tanning salon and a drop-off for dry cleaning.
Crieger said the second floor will contain everything related to the gym besides the “heavier, clanging free weights,” which will be located on the first floor. The second floor will have the usual gym equipment: free weights, weight machines, cardio machines and treadmills. A spinning class, a group exercise class and the locker rooms will also be located on the second floor.
Crieger said the gym is purchasing new equipment costing between $300,000 and $400,000.
The second floor will also feature a 1,000 square-foot section for women only called Lady Gold’s. Crieger said the section will be directly accessible from the women’s locker room and is for women who aren’t comfortable working out in the general population.
“It will be a personal, private workout room for women so they will not be bothered by anyone else,” he said.
Another feature of the second floor will be the placement of the treadmill section. Crieger said the treadmills will be located on an elevated platform in front of 16-foot tall windows. Each treadmill will also have its own television.
“It will be neat so when you are running you will be able to people watch or watch TV,” he said.
The cardio area will also face a bank of large screen and regular sized televisions.
The six partners involved in the new gym also own the Gold’s Gym in Baymeadows. Crieger said the new downtown location will be the first of several new Gold’s Gyms he and his partners are planning in the next few years. Due to current negotiations, Crieger could not give specifics, but he said the group is looking to possibly open new locations in Southside, Mandarin and on Atlantic Boulevard.
Crieger said he and his associates chose to open a location downtown because they believed there was a growing demand for a large, full scale gym.
“We have come here because we believe that the city has been reintroduced to living and residential life and we want to be a part of that,” said Crieger, adding the downtown location will help to create a hub for the other current and future Gold’s Gym sites.
“There are a lot of people that work downtown that live in other neighborhoods,” he said. “Eventually we will be going to those neighborhoods and they will be able to work out in the city where they work or on the weekends at home.
“This city is really neat. If you get activities downtown — reasons for people to come here and stay here — it is really going to benefit everybody.”
Scott Tucker, general manager for both Gold’s Gym locations, said he thinks people downtown have been waiting for an exercise venue like this for a long time now.
“It has been long overdue to have a club of this stature downtown and we are looking forward to doing business downtown,” said Tucker. “I think it is going to make a major impact
as far as wellness goes in
downtown Jacksonville.”
Tucker said the new Gold’s Gym location should produce about 40 new jobs downtown.