Peekskill has approved the application of 1101 Main Street LLC to renovate most of the former Rite Aid store at the Crossroads Shopping Center between Main and Park Streets into a 9,050-square-foot health club to be operated as an Anytime Fitness franchise. The city’s Common Council amended the C-2 zoning district to allow health clubs as a special permit use. The proposed use is already allowed in the C-3 and WF-2 districts and in some manufacturing zones.
City planning staff had recommended that the zoning amendment also allow health clubs to be permitted as-of-right in the C-1 district.
“We believe the proposed change is consistent with the aims and principles embodied in the Zoning Code,” the staff said in a message to the Common Council. “Service and retail businesses, including martial arts and dance studios, are currently allowed in these districts with the aim of providing commercial-type uses in shopping and mixed-use areas of the city.”
The proposed health club is to be located on the ground floor of the existing building at the shopping center property. The entrance to the health club is to be exclusive and not shared with any other use in the building. The proposed health club will be open 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
Anytime Fitness is an international health club franchise with more than 5,200 existing locations globally, including in Bedford, Yorktown, and Ossining in Westchester. Anytime Fitness franchises offer 24-hour security at all of their locations through the use of access control, cameras, closed-circuit television, panic buttons and alarm systems all connected to a monitoring service with a central monitoring station. The proposed Peekskill operation plans to be using the same type of security systems.
Anytime Fitness, which is headquartered in Woodbury, Minnesota, was founded in 2002 with a single location in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The city determined that the existing parking lot that services the Crossroads Shopping Center will accommodate the proposed health club, and the James Street parking garage with available public parking is within 500 feet of the facility.
The city’s Planning Commission in January gave a positive recommendation to the Common Council for the zoning text amendment and the special permit. In February, the commission acted as lead agency in the environmental review of the project. The Planning Commission subsequently gave its approval to the site plan for the project. It did raise a question about the location of a proposed bike rack and the applicant agreed to make sure that the bike rack was easily visible and did not block the flow of pedestrians. The Planning Commission expressed a belief that the facility will be a positive addition to Peekskill’s downtown.
