“As you walk through you get a real sense of community,” said Schwartz. Throughout the sports resort are a number of communal spaces that encourage members to sit, talk and be with one another, including: a sunken lounge where members can charge their laptops and computers pool-side fire pits located on the outdoor patio and sprawling bench seating outside the Group X theater. This really brought to life the magnitude of the project and drove new membership from those who wanted to become a part of it.”Īccording to Schwartz, fostering community is a key goal for the project. We visited local farmers markets and popular outdoor spaces in key Chicago neighborhoods and invited people to try on the virtual reality headsets. “If a picture is worth a thousand words, virtual reality is worth several thousand. “It is incredibly realistic and was the best way to communicate something people hadn’t seen before,” explained Schwartz. To sell current members on the benefits of the project, in addition to attracting new customers, Midtown Athletic Club in Chicago utilized virtual reality technology - creating nine unique virtual walk-through experiences of the club. But I think members have understood the temporary solutions we put in place.” “It wasn’t ideal for a lot of members - we’ve had to route people in from different ways, create walkways, stuff like that. “I think we provided a reasonable experience,” he said.

To make the transition as smooth for current members as possible, Midtown Athletic Clubs invested $1 million into a temporary fitness space embedded within the first floor of the parking garage.Īccording to Jon Brady, the COO of Midtown Athletic Clubs, the goal with the temporary space was to limit member disruption as much as possible.

One of the biggest challenges with the project was renovating and expanding while staying open for business. We wanted to create story opportunities.”Ĭreating a legacy property on this large of a scale - one with a story worth telling - was no easy feat, especially when that legacy is being built within a club that already boasted a robust membership. “Even if they don’t get it quite right when telling their friends about it, it’s all about stories and storytelling. “These are stories for our members to tell,” he said. Michael Mahoney, Midtown Athletic Club in Chicago’s general manager, said the stories behind these features are what make the club so special. Other highlights include a 3,000-pound Ganesh statue, brought on the same barge as the granite from India goose feather chandeliers in the women’s locker room and hand-crafted, wooden trees created by a local artist in the yoga studio. The facility is inundated with high-end features like the granite wall, and each has its own story surrounding how that feature was picked, and what challenges had to be overcome to see it come to fruition. Getting the granite to Chicago is a story in and of itself, requiring dozens of man hours and innovative problem solving to be installed. Members are greeted with a wall of beautiful, dark granite - painstakingly hand-picked in India by a staff member - that sits behind the marble-lined front desk. That bar is set high immediately upon entering the lobby at Midtown Athletic Club in Chicago. “I’m excited to build the world’s greatest health club and hotel that will set the standard for generations to come.” “Fifty years ago my father and grandfather set out to build the world’s best tennis club and they did it,” he said. The high-end sports resort, which boasts a 55-room boutique hotel, is an exerciser’s dream, featuring: indoor and outdoor pools, a warm yoga studio, 60-bike Spinning studio, group exercise theater, 10,000-square-foot cardio fitness floor, 40-yard turf indoor sports field, full-service spa with five treatment rooms and a hair salon, men’s barber shop, childcare, retail store, full-service restaurant, 16 indoor tennis courts and much more.Īccording to Steven Schwartz, the president and CEO of Midtown Athletic Clubs, the new facility is a legacy property for the brand and the Schwartz family. T his September, Midtown Athletic Club in Chicago’s members and staff got the keys to their new 575,000-square-foot fitness oasis - the culmination of an $80 million renovation and expansion project that began over three years ago. A look inside the $80 million renovation and expansion of the Midtown Athletic Club in Chicago.

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