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Soon-to-close workout space overlooking Green.
New Haveners who live or work downtown can walk to exercise studios that specialize in Pilates, yoga, cycling, and even pole dancing. But starting the end of this month, forget jogging on a treadmill or curling dumbbells.
Downtown will no longer have a basic gym and fitness center open to the general public, now that the Central Connecticut Coast YMCA announced that it will close the Elm City Y, a gym on the second floor of 900 Chapel St., on March 31.
The Central Connecticut Coast Y has run the Chapel Street gym since January 2015, when they took over the space from the former New Haven Fitness.
Timothy Bartlett, the chief operating officer for the regional YMCA, broke the news to the New Haven branch’s 325 members via email at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.
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The second floor gym space of the Elm City Y, which will be closing its doors at 900 Chapel St. at the end of March.
He said that the gym has seen its membership numbers plummet since the owners of 900 Chapel St. apartment and office building opened a free fitness center on the same floor as the Elm City Y in 2017 that is only available to residents of the building. Elm City Y charges a monthly membership fee that is pro-rated based on each member’s income.
“It comes down, financially, it was just not going to work for us,” he told the Independent over the phone.
He said that the gym has 12 part-time staff members. He said that current members retain their access privileges to any other Y gym in the country, including nearby facilities in North Haven, Hamden and Milford.
Elm City Y member Lindsay Blauvelt
In the hallway outside the Elm City Y’s facility on Wednesday afternoon, members visiting for their afternoon workouts were forlorn at the prospect of having to find a new gym further from home or work.
“This place really felt like a community space,” said Lindsay Blauvelt, a Yale School of Medicine employee who has been an Elm City Y member since June 2017. “It feels like a New Haven space.”
She said that many studios in the area offer yoga, Pilates and pole dancing, but no place besides the Y offers a basic fitness room. She said she would consider signing up with the Yale gym, since she has access privileges through her job, or with mActivty Gym on Nicoll Street in East Rock, though she said that she far prefers the downtown accessibility of the Y.
Elm City Y member Mike Casale.
Mike Casale, a former employee at New Haven Fitness who has been working out at the Y for over a year, said that he will likely have to find a gym closer to where he lives in North Haven.
He said that he hopes that Tyler MccCauley, the former co-owner of the old New Haven Fitness, buys the space and brings back his old gym.
Snake-Oil and Three Card Monte Being Sold.From what I hear get ready for
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