New gym planned for Golden Mile's Westridge shopping center
A $5 million multi-level Crunch Fitness and a mixed-use residential and commercial development are slated to come to the Westridge Square shopping center in Frederick.
The fitness center, which will occupy 1005-1077 West Patrick Street along Frederick's Golden Mile, will provide the city's residents with equipment and resources beyond the scope of a traditional gym, Christopher McDonald, the Golden Mile Alliance's executive director, said. The Golden Mile alliance supports businesses and economic development along Frederick's Golden Mile, also known as U.S. 40, he said.
The over 40,000-square-foot location will be open 24/7 and feature amenities such as an outdoor workout area, UV tanning beds, saunas, and babysitting for children, according to a Crunch Frederick Instagram post.
"The residents and the community are looking for different types of opportunities to be able to work out, and it might not be just cardio," McDonald said in a phone interview Tuesday. "They're bringing a lot more than just a gym to the Golden Mile, and I think the community is going to rally around that."
Crunch Fitness is a national gym chain with more than 400 locations in the United States. A $5 million location is also coming to Hagerstown, according to a Crunch Fitness Hagerstown Instagram post.
Frederick's aldermen in December 2023 unanimously approved a proposal to rezone the shopping center and allow for mixed-use development, the News-Post previously reported.
The aldermen approved the Westridge shopping center development's master plan at the same time, according to Gabrielle Collard, Frederick's deputy director for planning.
The development will include townhomes and multifamily housing, according to Collard. There will be a maximum of about 244 total residential units, she said.
"With those added residences that are coming in, those residents are going to want facilities such as a workout facility, such as Crunch, that's going to come in and fulfill those needs," McDonald said.
The Frederick News-Post previously reported that the development would remove about 100,000 square feet of retail space on the shopping center's eastern side. Businesses on the west side of the shopping center, such as H-Mart and Il Forno Pizzeria, are expected to remain as part of the redeveloped property.
According to Collard, the new development's construction has not started, but renovations have begun on the existing signage and the building's facade.
MCB Real Estate, the project's developer, has filed a final site plan and a preliminary plat, which defines new lots and subdivides the property, Collard said. The final plan has not been scheduled for a planning commission workshop yet, she added.
Since the project is still in its initial stages, the Golden Mile Alliance has not spoken with Crunch Fitness yet, McDonald said. Once the project progresses, he expects to have more of a relationship with the fitness center, he said.
A major component of the Westridge Square development is to create an avenue on the north side of U.S. 40 and south of Key Parkway, that links all the commercial development together, Collard said. The road would "modernize" traveling from one shopping center to another and create alternative routes, she said.
"It's going to be a pretty incremental improvement, because you're talking about redevelopment of all these sites and having that opportunity to start to create that new alignment of the road and the sidewalks that support it," Collard said. "But this project will be constructing that first segment, which is really neat."
Crunch Fitness Frederick and MCB Real Estate, the Westridge Square Shopping Center property's developer, did not respond to requests for comment. Frederick's director of economic development, Richard Griffin, also did not respond to requests for comment.
