Posh Park Harvey Athletic club opens

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OKLAHOMA CITY – Many people who live and work in or near downtown Oklahoma City may also want to stay fit and work out downtown.
Based on more urban residents and the number of existing workers downtown, one group of developers decided to open an athletic club where membership is limited and amenities are aplenty.
The Park Harvey Athletic Club opened in late November in the lower level of the Park Harvey Apartment Building and plans to hold its grand opening this week.
But the owners didn’t want the club to just be a place to work out.
After descending the stairs into the card-accessed club, members are greeted by dark wood floors and columns, plush furniture, flat-screen televisions hanging from nearly every wall and a smoothie bar.
Brian Calvin, one of the owners and the managing member, said he wanted to create an environment where not everyone is there to exercise.
“It’s a health club so we wanted people to come in and get healthy,” he said. “We also wanted them to hang out, check their e-mail or have a smoothie.
“It doesn’t look like a hard gym,” he said. “It has a home feel.”
The club offers private, corporate and Park Harvey resident memberships ranging from $69 to $129 a month.
Calvin said membership is currently at about 100, and the club has signed two corporate accounts. The club has not determined where it will cap membership yet, but said it will be limited for the sole reason of allowing members to exercise and use the equipment without having to wait during busy times.
The club also strives to pamper its customers with perks such as the smoothie bar, private lockers and toiletry items available in the locker rooms.
The total cost to renovate the 12,000-square-foot space and add fitness machines, tanning beds and other renovations had a price tag of about $1.5 million.
Garry Adams, another one of the clubs owners, said they have not had a problem convincing people to join the upscale club.
Adams said the club works to extol the benefits of a healthy lifestyle in a smartly appointed club and making the time to fit exercise into a busy schedule.
“The benefits we’re trying to get across is working a healthy lifestyle into a work routine and fitting it into people’s schedules,” he said.
And while the YMCA has had a presence in downtown for years, with a Midtown location set to open next month, the owners of the Park Harvey club are hoping to draw from an expected continued influx of downtown residents.
In a Strategic Action Plan for 2010 completed by several entities including Downtown OKC Inc. in 2001, one of the goals was to facilitate the development of 2,000 new housing units.
In the past year several projects have come online to provide that downtown housing, including the 162-unit Park Harvey and the 303-unit Legacy at Arts Quarter.