Membership surges at new Choice fitness center
October 4, 2012 at 1:15 am in Grand Forks Herald
Choice Health & Fitness’ biggest problem in its first week open was a good one to have. The Grand Forks Park District’s $23 million facility didn’t have enough employees to handle the crowd. Continue Reading
Dear Herald, please do a follow up in two months with the private fitness facilities in town and let us know if their membership has gone up or down.
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I’m guessing you think this is unfair competition for those business’ already established. If so then I agree. It’s one thing to use public money for pools, parks, and ice rinks because without public money they probably wouldn’t get built. Building a fitness court really does offer an unfair advantage for taking potential customers away fom the other private centers…..But what the hell…We’re only talking 23 million…Not like big money or anything right?
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I was and am against this because it is a service the market can provide. It seems that the market was not acting fast enough for some folks. Also, they wanted a UND wellness center for the general public, and didn’t think any private company would satisfy their desires so they chose to build what they wanted (with largely private donations) and then maintain it using the Alerus Center model.
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That said it is here. The question is will my kids use it enough to justify $75 a month? Right now I pay $30 for the three of them at the local purple gym. Is it worth the extra $45? Time will tell
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It s worth it; standing up for your standards is never a bad thing. I will support my Gym and encourage others to do the same.
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What a shame, local government in competition with private business; to use the power and funding arm of government to go head to head against private business is something I will not do. I will never set foot in that building or do anything that supports it in any way.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Justasec, while I agree that the GF Park District’s role is to provide public recreation facilities, its role should be limited to projects that private businesses won’t or can’t develop. For example, I have no problem with the Park District maintaining a bike trail system, public parks, public swimming pools and similar facilities that the private sector can’t economically develop. This facility is different. It is in direct competition with already existing private enterprises. Fitness facilities are economically feasible to run privately as evidenced by numerous privately owned facilities that already exist, but not when the Park District enters the game with significant built-in advantages. The Park District is able to raise funds through donations that qualify as charitable contributions, a significant advantage over a private business. Essentially the Park District is able to construct for free a facility that competes against a private business that has to finance it facility. It is a heck of a lot easier to breakeven in your operations when you don’t have to pay for the physical asset. This allows the Park District to build a facility that is far superior to anything that a private citizen could ever finance which will ultimately lead to lost revenue for private individuals. I don’t have an issue with the Park District providing amenities that the private sector won’t, but that wasn’t the case in this instance, there were plenty of facilities. I agree that it is an asset for Grand Forks, as long as you are not an owner of Snap Fitness, 24 Hour Fitness, Curves, Planet Fitness and the other independent gyms in town.
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The Y and the GF Park District are in the business of providing fitness/wellness activities as a charitable and public service.
$50 and $75 (family) a month is not a charitable or public service activity. Those numbers place most poor or poorer families out of the market.
When this initially was discussed there was talk of “X” number of needs based scholarships for lower income folk. Has anyone heard how many if any of these scholarships are actually in place. Also, do they work at both places or just the “Y.”
There was also a great deal of discussion about segregation by income: desirables down south, less than desirable up north. Not that anyone in GF would look down their noses at those less fortunate…just look at all of the various comments on these boards about social service recipients.
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Is the Y still an independent business or just another city function these days? I know when the YMCA organization ran it that they did have application for either reduced or fre memberships for low income families. I have no idea if this still is available, but should be. Especially since this nice new luxury unit is built in the south end where more of the higher end homes are too…..I wonder how much of a coincidence that was? By that I mean who pushed this through? Was it like, ” I say….There’s no facility up to my standards, and nobody will build one like we deserve out here…..I know….Lets get the public to do it and then we’ll keep out the Riff Raff by making the fees too high for most of them? Hey! Wait a minute….I’m taking over Gene’s conspiracy gig…..
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FN,
Yes a Y membership allows access to Choice and vice versa. Not sure if there is a limited # of memberships available to low income families…..a call to the YMCA would clarify this, i
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So we can discuss the fitness center but not the Presidential debate.
Something tells me that if Obama had even shown up last night the comments section would have been available.
Way to protect your guy Herald.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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That is all anyone on FB has been talking about for two days. I agree the Big O was way preoccupied with something. I kept expecting them to break into the debate to announce Israel had nuked Iran or something. It was obvious he would have been anyplace other than in Denver.
My problem is that everyone heard what they wanted to hear, neither side listened to what the other guy said (Does anyone really believe Romney is going to protect preexisting conditions and not push for a tax break on the highest earners? The Tea Party would assassinate him; and he is their man) and no one really changed their mind. It was just another infomercial.
I want a debate where the candidates have no idea what the questions are going to be. A real live, honest to God discussion of the issues. I would pay to see that.
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The Heralds guy? Go look at the side by side caricatures in yesterday’s Herald and the write up. That was definitely not for Obama, and was basically pretty tasteless and offensive. They definitely are not big Obama supporters. Not this conservative rag
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When the initial blush falls off the rose, and memberships dry up, will the Herald publish stories about the red ink? Doubtful. Witness its silence on the Alerus.
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Again the city built a facility that is needed in a city as large as grand forks. Snap, curves, ect… are small facilities at a cheap rate. The y is outdated. And there is no large health facility and your “private sector” didn’t want to take it on. The 50 or 75 dollar fee is what a membership at a facility like this costs. It offers much more than the smaller gyms or even the y could. The other buisness will not suffer and will be competetive in their niche. You people whine and complain about fargo and bismark getting all the glory and respect but don’t want to do anything to make this community grow. And it was put on the southend because that is where the available land is!
Hot debate. What do you think?
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“Again the city built a facility that is needed in a city as large as grand forks>”
Every time someone writes something like that I blow coffee out my nose. Grand Forks is a berg. That is why we live here. This fall’s enrollment numbers at Arizona State University were 73,000 people.
Grand Forks is many things, a large city is not among them.
You need to get out more often.
Additionally: since the private sector (who has to turn a profit) was not stepping up to the plate quick enough, the city was compelled to build this? How does this square with parents having to pay to have their kids ride the school bus?
What is a required city function: educating their kids or providing a nice place for stay at home moms to meet and work out?
I would question your priorities
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” Grand Forks is a berg”
FN, your German is no better than your Latin. berg=mountain. burg=town.
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50/50 chance and I guessed worng. Thanks for the editing. Now I know for the next time.
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I’m not a young man anymore, but I used to be pretty damn solid….I never went to the gym…Instead I did things like throw hay bales on a cart, dig post holes with a post hole digger (Try in in November or December for a real work out), used shovels and picks, hauled cement in wheel barrows, carried mud and bricks in both hands while climbing ladders up to brick layers, and just a lot of other heavy lifting and general hard work…You know…The kind of stuff apparently you can’t get a lot of young people to even do any more.
I guarntee any young person who goes into construction work at a young age that you WILL NOT need to ever set foot into a work out center to be as fit or most likely more fit than most of the people paying the big bucks to be there….And you make money to boot.
Of course the one big draw back is that while you work that hard you develope a hardy appetite that sticks with you later in life when you find something easier to do…But I guess you can spend the big bucks to try to keep the weight off at that time by going to the gym
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What? Young folk just gnawing at the bit to have a nice cushy work out place rather than to earn their muscles the honest way through damn hard work?
My point was simply regardless how you look at it…..these things are only needed because most people don’t do the hard work necessary to get the muscle tone they desire. It’s better that there’s something available because if nobody’s doing the hard work then we’d have even worse problems
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When did I miss the vote on this place?
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I have been to Choice Wellness Center a few times. While I could make several complaints about certain aspects of their facility, I will save that for a later topic discussion.
The best thing I see happening at their facility is a lot of local youth, playing basketball, lifting weights, racquetball, etc. This is a good direction for our youth to be headed…much better than puffing cigs, blowing joints, chugging booze or ingesting pharmaceuticals
Choice Wellness is a family oriented facility unlike any other facility in town, with the exception of the Y. The other 24hr facilities will still their niche, so I personally don’t see those types of business in jeopardy.
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LOL…Nice comparison. Like saying…”Well the kids seem to do so much better playing over there in the park instead of the middle of South Washington” Two examples so far apart on the spectrum reall don’t make a good comparison….But it is pretty funny when you think of it….Like: “Youse broads do so much better looking for legal work than to go out working the truck stops for cash”
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Tundra,
Please leave my mother out of this discussion.
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Nurse, your twisting my words I never compared grand forks to minneapolis or pheonix. It is large enough for a facility of this type. All the other gyms are just that gyms where you go to work out on a machine or weight bench. This facility is a family center that offers so much more as how I c it stated. We live in little siberia for heavens sake, this facility will allow a large number of people and families a change to enjoy many activities during the winter. It is not a just a facility “for stay at home moms to work out in”
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Little Siberia…….Comrad…..Do a little Wodka and come out with the old beast of the tundra and we’ll find a couple of bears to wrestle (Might be tough to find though) and get excercise like real men do on the tundra. Not in some fancy gym for gurley men…..
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Man what a tough crowd. There’s always those who dislike any tongue in cheek on these boards. I guess we’re supposed to be just serious on here……… Sorry….I just can’t comply. I’d much rather play than stay über serious all the time
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Ron, your comment is very wrong in its description that the new facility provides more than was already available in Grand Forks. There was an existing waterpark open to the public at the Canad Inn and several other local motels allowed you to purchase day passes. Not to mention that the YMCA already had a swimming facility and the local high schools have swimming facilities that are open to the public at certain hours. UND also has swimming lessons and open hours for its pool. There were plenty of local gyms that offer all of the cardio equipment and weight equipment offered at the new facility. Several gyms already had fitness rooms for various fitness classes. The only thing that was not offered privately are the indoor tennis courts, which were already being provided at Center Court. Your attempt to sell this as a “need” to be filled in Grand Forks is not credible. This was clearly a “want” driven, at least in part, by a group of South end families who wanted better indoor tennis courts and a waterpark for their kids. Everything at the new facility was already available in Grand Forks before this facility was built.
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I agree with your general argument. We could argue though that the severity of the winters here warrants more indoor waterparks & arenas than most cities need in warmer climates.
Many suburbs of 12,000 to 25,000 pop. in MSP have community/rec centers as large or larger than GF with 55,000. Since GF isn’t a suburb but a stand alone city it needs to also do the things that much larger cities do for themselves & their burbs.
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FN always amazes me with his arrogant superiority complex. Not a burgh for NDAk. And it would be a fair sized suburb in any large metro. But 24HR Fitness would have been in GF 5 years ago if they thought the market would support it.
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No arrogance or condedescention, I moved back for a reason. Just making the claim that GF is anything other than a small city is nuts. It is not the same size as a suburb in a large metro area. Even the “hick” town I lived in in AZ had over twice our population.
Yes, we are large by ND standards, but is it really smart to use ND as a measuring stick?
We are what we are: a small, sparsely populated piece of tundra with a rich heritage and a tradition of helping each other. We are not not an urban center. Again, that is why most of us live here.
That said, or sparce population tends to make us very insular, and that is not always a good thing.
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We’re supposed to believe your pop. #s when you didn’t even know how many people there were in your hometown suburb in Colo. where you grew up. Remember you said there were 500,000 20 yrs. ago so it must be much more by now. In fact it is NOW only 350,000.
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I know I only compared it to fargo and bismark.
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“Tweten added that the membership demographics have changed with Choice. At Center Court, the vast majority of memberships were for individuals. Now, family memberships are in the majority.”
This sentence says it all. It is a family facility, where mom can go to zumba classes, daddy can go play raquetball , little johnny can go shoot hoops with his buddy and little suzie can go to the waterpark. This can replace the old pattern of mom going to zumba, dad watching football, little johnny playing video games and little suzie facebooking. It is a one stop shop something grand forks doesn’t have. It is a modern fitness center something grand forks doesn’t have. If you don’t want to go there that is your choice but it is a great facility for a community that wants to grow.
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Excellent comment Ron! Choice Wellness is a family oriented facility, providing our citizens with some healthy indoor activities to participate in, especially useful in the cold winter months, which is often the longest season in this part of the country.
Choice provides activities for our entire family. I can drop the little ones off at the in-house daycare, get a workout in, shoot some hoops with my teenager and wrap up with some fun in the splash park with the entire family. Until now there was no facility in Grand Forks with this capability.
I don’t use the dog park, softball diamonds or soccer fields in town but I also don’t complain about them. They are all essential to Grand Forks and provide better quality of living for our residents.
I would rather our city establish healthy activities for our citizens than putting up another watering hole. God knows we have enough of them around town. Our fascination with alcohol is huge burden to our city and state, just look at our traffic fatalities resulting from DWI drivers. Providing our residents with healthy activities to participate may reduce the consumption of alcohol which in return will reduce the fatalities and crimes committed by those who are intoxicated. Perhaps may even put a dent in our obesity epidemic as well.
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I never heard of “Zumba Classes” so I looked it up. I found a great Youtube video showing a bunch of stiff white people looking more like doing Aombie impressions than a Zumba routine….Pretty funny…..I’l like to see a side by side comparison with a class full of mixed races
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BILiNvLA-lo
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Correct me if I am wrong spearman but I think shakopee’s fitness center is publicly funded. And I believe their schools use the facilities also.
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That’s true of Chaska & all the burbs with rec centers. Shakopee’s is funded by the Mystic Lake Casino/tribe. There are really no schools close enough to Mystic Lake to make it easy for schools to use except for the 2 hockey rinks whereas in Chaska there are schools across the street so they can walk over. Chaska’s is about a $50 mill. facility in a town of 25,000 built to service 70,000. 2 hockey rinks, 8 locker rooms, 250 set theater, art gallery, climbing wall, 2 gyms, pool/outdoor kiddie pool, hot tubs, sauna, hospital rehabilitation gym, child healthcare clinic, large community room, 4 meeting rooms, 2 daycares, senior center, 2 or 3 handball courts, weightlifting/running/walking machine area, 2 dance/yoga studios, cafe, running track & police station.
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BTW the Chaska center was built 22 yrs. ago when the pop. was only 12,000. It has expanded on a regular basis. The original cost was about $25 mill. Chaska’s pop. will max out @ 30,000 people because of available land to expand in even though the rec center is built for 70,000 people to accommodate people in smaller surrounding towns & rural areas.
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