Anytime Fitness to open in Moosomin this fall
June 7, 2023, 1:29 pm
Sierra D'Souza Butts
At last week’s Chamber of Commerce meeting, Edward DeVries of Anytime Fitness informed Chamber members about his businesses plan for building a new gym in Moosomin, which is projected to open on October 1, 2023,
“It’s really nice to be here. Moosomin is such an awesome community, we felt that for a long time,” said DeVries.
“Our daughter plays football here and any time we come to visit, we’ve always had an amazing experience here in Moosmin. Obviously I think it comes down to the people here, you guys have a lot of business leaders and it definitely shows in this community.
“It has so much more for a small town Saskatchewan feel, it feels like everyone’s always striving for more, working together to make the town better.
“That’s definitely one of the reasons why we’re wanting to come to Moosomin.
“We at first originally tried to get the store in Melville, and the town council was extremely hard to deal with. There was no help trying to find real estate, no help trying to do anything with getting another business in town.
“By chance I was looking at a vehicle and I saw Murray (Gray) over there. He heard where we were from, he worked hard to get us over here.
“We took a tour with him, drove around town, went for a couple coffees, talked about all of the benefits in Moosomin, what Moosomin has to offer, and it was a no-brainer for us to switch our location from Melville to Moosomin.”
When will construction begin?
Although the plans for building the new gym in town started back in 2020, construction was delayed by Covid.
However, DeVries said ground work for the new facility is expected to start on June 8.
“We should be breaking ground here in the next couple weeks. Jay Hamilton will be doing construction for us, we’re going to be building a brand new 6,200 square foot facility,” he said.
“We’re putting in almost half a million dollars of equipment in there, it will be top-of-the-line gym equipment as well.
“I can’t wait to have all of you in our gym, and to be a part of this community as well too.”
The gym will be built on Main Street between Park Avenue and Lake Avenue.
At the meeting, DeVries said that people who purchase a membership at the new facility can expect to have access to any Anytime Fitness centres around the world.
“Anytime Fitness is an international franchise. There’s 5,300 Anytime Fitness locations worldwide, what that means is as a member each person would get a key fob that would grant you access to the gym and through your phone,” he said.
“As a member you’ll have access to the gym 24 hours a day seven days a week. It won’t be staffed 24 hours a day, but it will register all the visitors and you can come and go as you please.
“Another great thing is once you’re a member of Anytime Fitness, you’re a member of all of them so you’ll have access to 5,300 locations worldwide.”
DeVries spoke about what sparked his and his wife’s interest for opening the franchise in Esterhazy, and now in Moosomin.
“There’s more Anytime Fitness franchises in the world than any other gym. One of the things that brought us to the anytime world when I was looking around, when we first opened up, was how warm and welcoming they were,” he said.
“I know gyms can get a bad rep with only having body builders there, you’re walking around and you get a skeptic vibe, and we’re not that kind of gym. Everyone is welcomed, all ages of all body types.
“The way we look at it is we need to make health and wellness a way of our life.
“Ultimately what we need in life is balance, is to balance our physical fitness with enjoying life. If you tell me I can never have a beer again, I don’t want to live in that world, but we need to balance that with making sure we’re doing the best that we can.
“And, that’s what Anytime Fitness is about, keeping that balance in life and making sure we’re staying physically active as well, enjoying life, spending time with grandchildren, enjoying nature.
“That’s one of the things meaningful to the franchise and that covers all of the bases, and I think that’s going to reflect well with a lot of people here in Moosomin as well.”
