Facility Design
& Operations
Facility Design & Operations
A fitness centre can be a great PART of a comprehensive wellness program, but it is only one of many key elements. Without the right model and proper guidance, a facility can be expensive and an underutilized drain on space, finances and resources. If you don’t have one, that’s OK. There are many other things you can do to improve workplace wellness.
If you are thinking about one, we can help you determine whether it’s a good fit and work with you to make it extremely effective. In fact, a consultation with our team could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars and will be the best time and money you invest in the pursuit of a new corporate fitness centre.
If you already have one, our expert team will work with you to optimize it, update and organize equipment, ensure the right services are offered and ensure it is properly maintained and managed over time.
Our team has decades of experience designing, owning, operating, managing and programming for a wide variety of fitness facility models. Whether it is a few hundred square feet of open exercise space or a 100,000sf integrated wellness centre, we have the expertise and resources to make it happen for you.
Contact us today for more information and to set up a complimentary facility consultation.
Thinking about building a facility? Upgrading an existing one? Make sure you have the right advice before making important design and equipment decisions. It could save you a significant amount of money and frustration!
Use the contact form below to set up your complimentary facility consultation. This one short meeting may be the best investment you make in your facility!
Welcome to FRESH! Facilities. We started this division of FRESH! Wellness Group because despite the fact that fitness centres are everywhere, most are ineffective, poorly utilized and a significant financial investment.
We believe in the power of health and fitness to transform lives, businesses and properties…when done properly! FRESH! has proven that a better way exists. One that can decrease costs, save space and increase effectiveness. Before you start planning your fitness centre, check out this site or contact us below to find out more information.
Smart amenity spaces that work for property developers, managers and tenants.
Fitness and wellness amenities are consistently ranked in the top 3 requests by building occupants. This includes residential, commercial and mixed-use developments.
Progressive developers and building managers understand that top quality fitness and wellness amenities are a significant asset to a building. With this great tenant amenity, the sales/leasing process is much easier, sale/lease values remain high, and higher quality tenants are attracted to the property.
Unfortunately, too many developers are still acting on outdated fitness and wellness centre beliefs and information. Here are just a few myths about fitness and wellness that cost developers money and opportunity.
- Fitness centres are expensive
- Gyms take up too much valuable space
- We don’t have enough room for all that equipment
- Most gyms are never used anyway
- Tenants will be upset because it will raise their operating costs too much
We hear these comments all the time. The good news is they are ALL FALSE!
With the right advice and fitness centre model, each one of these negative statements can be turned into a positive.
- Fitness centres can be very cost effective and scaled to suit virtually any budget (even with no budget)!
- Small spaces can be very effective. In fact, most existing spaces can be modified to work. FRESH! has designed fully functioning commercial fitness centres in as little as 400sf.
- Equipment is the biggest myth out there! The fact is, some equipment is useful, but most people dramatically overestimate the amount, type and cost of equipment needed.
- We’ve equipped commercial-quality fitness centres for less than $10,000. These facilities are often more useful to people than gyms containing equipment 10x more costly.
The best advice we can give to people is to consult a qualified and experienced fitness professional (not a fitness equipment company or an architect) to help you decide on the following critical factors…
- What is your goal for the facility?
- Who will be using it? How often? How many people? What is the traffic flow/volume?
- What is your budget?
- How can this budget be used most effectively to create value for users and your company?
- Have you looked at alternative facility model options (managed, unmanaged, hybrid models, partnerships, etc.)?
At FRESH!, we’ve spent 20+ years designing, managing and operating commercial fitness centres. We understand inherently what clients need to get the results they want, what equipment and tools the industry’s top trainers and coaches use on a daily basis, and how to use this knowledge to create the ideal fitness and wellness facility for your needs.
We also leverage our extensive range of equipment suppliers to ensure you get the most effective tools. Period. No more missing out on key equipment and being stuck with a single manufacturer.
Contact us below for help with your next project.
Most corporate gyms are a poor investment. Avoid the biggest mistakes.
Companies routinely spend millions of dollars building “state of the art” corporate fitness centres. These facilities are beautiful to look at, but unfortunately they are generally a waste of hard-earned money!
You may think it’s strange that a fitness centre design company is claiming that corporate wellness facilities are a waste of money. We absolutely believe that fitness centres CAN be a great benefit. However, the traditional “health club” model used for most corporate facilities is the actual problem.
This model is based on installing lots of equipment such as isolated exercise machines (ie. selectorized circuits) and cardio equipment, and ensuring that people have cheap or no cost access to it. The issue with this model is that it’s proven to be ineffective for decades. Think of it this way…statistics show that over 80% of people who have a gym membership fail to use it on a weekly basis!
In our humble opinion, this completely defeats the purpose of having a fitness centre. Now, if you are in the business of owning a “health” club, this is a fantastic business model. You can charge thousands of members a monthly fee and know that only a handful of people will actually use your facility! The average “big chain health club” can have 5,000-10,000 members, yet only around 1000 of them will come regularly. That’s why they can afford to charge such low membership fees. The people who don’t come are subsidizing the rates for those who do attend.
If your goal is to make a profit, this works great! However, for a company investing in employee health and wellness, you actually WANT people to use the gym regularly, and to use it PROPERLY! This is the entire reason that FRESH! exists. Our goal is to ensure that each person we work with is able to transform their fitness and lifestyle by building healthy daily habits. To us, continuing to follow a model where over 80% of people fail and fall through the cracks is unethical.
It’s a proven fact that employees who exercise regularly are healthier, happier, more loyal and cost the company less money in medical and drugs over time. However, most people don’t exercise regularly.
The top 5 excuses people use for failing to exercise regularly are: time, money, resources, knowledge and motivation. Companies that build a fitness facility can remove ALL of these barriers, assuming that the facility is properly designed and managed.
This is where most companies fall flat. They use the health club model and throw a bunch of equipment in a room. Sure, it may be fancy, expensive equipment, and you may even have a trained monkey on site to ensure that people don’t hurt themselves. However, that only solves the problem of access. It’s available, but people still won’t use it.
Remember, your goal as a company is to ensure that your employees have access to the right tools, but more importantly that they know how to use them properly, are excited about them, and they are motivated to actually use the tools on a regular basis!
Company owners are often shocked when we say that they are better off setting aside a small, empty room and hiring a knowledgeable professional to educate and motivate people rather than build out a traditional fitness centre.
It’s true! Those who are motivated to exercise on their own will do so, regardless of whether you have a corporate fitness facility. They are also the ones who are already (generally) healthy, fit and cost the company the least amount of money.
From a company perspective, the people who “hate the gym” and would never step foot inside one are the biggest opportunity for change, cost savings and long term productivity!
Traditional gyms intimidate these people, and in truth, are useless for helping them get results. Yet, a properly designed and implemented corporate wellness facility (notice how we didn’t say “gym”) is a vital part of an overall corporate wellness program and can provide an excellent return on your strategic investment!
- Work with you to define your goals for a corporate wellness facility
- Determine whether a facility is actually the best use of your financial and real estate resources (it isn’t always, and we are happy to help clients realize this)
- Build the most strategically-planned and functional space possible for your employees (which may or may not look like a typical gym)
- Ensure the facility is properly managed, operated, maintained, and that it is effectively promoted to employees across the organization.
- Track key metrics and provide you regular reports and strategy recommendations surrounding health and wellness
Regardless of the size of your organization, if you have considered designing a fitness centre for your employees, the best investment you can make is to spend a couple hours with the experts at FRESH! to get professional advice on the business case, strategy and planning of the facility. This will save you 10’s of thousands of dollars and dramatically improve the usage and effectiveness of your fitness centre.
Just scroll down to contact us. We will set up a meeting to discuss your plans.
Leverage our 20+ years of fitness and wellness expertise on your next project.
As a design professional, you are awesome at what you do. However, it’s probably safe to say that you aren’t a fitness and wellness expert (sorry, being fit and going to the gym regularly doesn’t count either!). It’s the same reason we aren’t architects even though we can manipulate a few drawings in CAD or Illustrator!
For over 20 years, the team at FRESH! has been training, managing and designing fitness facilities. This includes effective equipment selection, layout and functional programming for the needs of the space. Additionally, for almost this long, we’ve been teaching and coaching other industry professionals about the concepts of movement training and functional fitness.
So What Does This Mean for YOU as a Design Professional?
Our sole purpose is to optimize movement and function so that people can get the results they want and the life they deserve. For your clients, this means creating the best facility to meet their usage needs and budget. For you, this means you look great, have less stress and get to focus on the things that you do best!
The simple fact is that traditional fitness centres fail on almost every front. The old school approach to throwing a bunch of fitness and cardio machines in a room and calling it a gym is gone. Sure, some people do it, and they can even spend lots of money to make the design look fancy, but those facilities are still ineffective and the companies recommending them are dinosaurs in a rapidly-evolving industry.
Watch any good trainer or sports conditioning expert and you will notice that they NEVER use the machines in a typical gym. Their style and philosophy of training is completely different…and it works well. However, almost every big health club and corporate gym is loaded with them!
There is a better way, and FRESH! can help you “wow” your client with something that is unique and functional but still amazing to look at!
Have a current project underway? Perhaps you just want to find out how we can send business your way and make your job easier on future projects? Simply contact us below and we will get back to you within one business day.
Community recreation, sport training, fitness studio, school gyms and much more!
While we believe that every fitness facility should be designed around effective function and space utilization, this is particularly true of what we term “alternate” facility models. The community recreation, sports training, school gym and private fitness studio models are quite diverse, but share a few important characteristics…
- Optimizing available space to accommodate a large number of users
- Provide diverse training experiences for a broad spectrum of users
- Maximize the utilization of funds that have been allocated to the project
It’s these facility styles that are most negatively affected by the typical “health club” model of fitness centre design. Throwing a bunch of cardio and bulky strength machines in a room takes up A LOT of space, is exceedingly expensive, and it dramatically reduces the effectiveness and versatility of the space.
Plus, in most circumstances (particularly sport training centres and school gyms), this format can actually increase the risk of long-term injury in users.
We’ve designed and managed a wide variety of facilities, from 60,000sf sport training centres and 100,000+sf community recreation centres to 500sf schools gyms and hotel fitness centres.
With all of these facilities, the goal is the same…
To design the best facility for your users, their goals and your budget.
It’s a simple process, but very few equipment companies have the training and coaching expertise or the user-centered philosophy necessary to make it successful!
Contact us below to find out more about how we can help you design your facility.
