Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader Photo by Tim Ryan Total Fitness, 212 E. Green Bay St., will be moving within the next few months to a new location at 116 N. Main St. where the health club will have more room and be able to offer additional services.
Leader Photo by Tim Ryan Total Fitness health club will move into a new space in the former furniture store at 116 N. Main St. in the next few months. Renovation of the property is already underway.
Perhaps fitting for a business that aims to keep its clients physically active, the Total Fitness health club is on the move.
Owner Jean Darling has purchased the former Badger’s Best Furniture building at 116 N. Main St., where renovations are already underway for an expanded Total Fitness with more room and additional offerings.
“I’m very excited about that,” Darling said.
Darling hopes the new location will be open within the next couple of months. The business is currently located at 212 E. Green Bay St.
It opened 12 years ago this month and started with a health club membership of 100 people. Membership has grown since then to 950, according to Darling.
Darling said she has been looking for a larger space for the last two years.
“People felt they were being crowded,” she said.
Total Fitness will stretch out from its current 5,000 square feet to 8,000 square feet at its new location, with additional space still available for other health-related services to move in.
The health club, which already offers a variety of classes and personal training programs, will also be able to offer additional services it didn’t have the room or facilities for before, including healthy cooking classes and child care.
There will also be a community room available for rental.
The new location also offers additional locker room space and more parking than its current site.
Shawano County has often been in the lower tier of health rankings, coming in at 45 out of 72, in the last study done by the University of Wisconsin-Madison school of health. Menominee County ranked at the bottom.
According to Darling, people are becoming more health-conscious and increasingly seeking out options such as health clubs.
“People are becoming more self-conscious about their health,” she said.
That particularly applies to baby boomers, who make up about 30 percent of the club’s membership.
“They’re taking more responsibility for their health,” Darling said. “They want to feel good as they age.”
The club’s membership runs the spectrum from young to “seasoned,” Darling said.
The current location shouldn’t stay vacant for long, however.
Darling said there are businesses interested in occupying that space, though she declined to name them for reasons of confidentiality.