 "Photo: Cameron Kittle")
As Durham continues to struggle in the current economic downturn students are forced to make a choice between extra money and convenience for their exercise routines. Space is limited at the university’s Hamel Rec Center and students have been choosing to spend $15 to $25 dollars a month to work out at Wildcat Fitness, located in Mill Road Plaza.
The Hamel Recreation Center is open from 6 a.m. till midnight during weekdays, but closes earlier at 10 p.m. on Saturdays. While Wildcat Fitness is open for fewer hours during the week, from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 5:30 to 8 on Friday, it draws fewer people being off campus.
The majority of students use the Hamel Rec Center to exercise, but students have complained about lack of accessibility and crowding of machines at the university gym for years.
“I always have to wait for a machine for about 15 minutes,” junior Elizabeth Ouellette said. “Sometimes I don’t go to the gym because I don’t have time to wait for one to open up.”
Since Wildcat Fitness has provided a second option, some students are taking full advantage. According to General Manager Ashley Chamberlain, this proximity applies mostly to students who live in or near the Mills, where Wildcat Fitness is closer to them than the Hamel Student Recreation Center.
With a full-access membership package, students can also get unlimited tanning, a service that is not available at the university’s gym.
There are also the dollars and cents. Wildcat Fitness charges $15 a month for a membership and $25 a month for a full-access membership, which includes unlimited tanning. The gym also offers personal trainers and nutritional coaching.
If members have something on their minds, giving feedback couldn’t be much easier. Both co-founders, Ken and Susan Entz, exercise at the gym daily.
“A lot of our members, if they have a problem or an issue or a suggestion, they know the owner is going to be around, maybe unlike some of the other gyms that may be a little bigger than us,” Ken Entz said.
He described the feel of the gym by comparing its members coming in to work out to Norm walking into the famous bar Cheers.
“They want to come in here and belong,” he said.
Currently, the gym has 1200 members and continues to grow. Susan said membership is heavy on community members, but students come as well.
While the numbers are behind their original projections of 1500 to 1600 members by this point, Ken said that in a recession many businesses are behind their projections.
“The fact that we were able to open at the start of the worst recession and actually make money every month and increase our memberships every month is a good testament to how we are doing,” he said.
The idea for Wildcat Fitness began while Susan Entz was enrolled in the MBA program here at UNH. She started a business plan for a gym as part of her coursework. Also, she and her husband Ken had friends who were in the gym business and enjoyed it.
The Entzes looked at locations in Pennsylvania and Nevada, but when Susan discovered that Zyla’s, a popular dollar store located in Mill Road Plaza, had closed and its spot was up for lease, they decided to open the business locally.
About a year later, on June 28, 2008, Wildcat Fitness opened.
“There were many days where we just walked around with our hearts in our throat,” Susan said of those first days. “It was wonderful, it was exciting, it was exhilarating, and we were scared to death. The response from people was awesome.”
By August, 400 people had joined. But the gym quickly faced a challenge—the recession.
Ken cited the gym’s close proximity—which translated into saving time and gas money—as one draw that kept members coming. For other members, he said, the draw was seeing friends and neighbors. The gym has also been praised for its cleanliness, and Ken pointed out the abundance of parking is also convenient.
While locals and students alike use Wildcat Fitness as a place to exercise their muscles, the founders and staff of the Mill Road Plaza gym have also made it a place to exercise community service.
The gym recently became a registered drop-off site for donations to the New Hampshire Food Bank and Toys for Tots. The gym will take toy donations until two weeks before Christmas, and food donations until Dec. 23.
“We try to give back as much as we can, especially locally,” said Chamberlain, who is in charge of organizing the gym’s charitable efforts. “That’s why we chose New Hampshire Food bank.”
She said with hundreds of locals passing through their doors, becoming a drop off spot was a way to help them help others.
“People in our area are so generous anyway that we want to make it convenient for them to help out locally,” she said.
However, the gym isn’t just active during the holidays. Susan Entz, who is the director of the Office of Presidential Events and Programs here at UNH, said the gym has been focused on community since day one.
“If you look around you and see all of the chains that are in the area, we really had to do something to set ourselves apart,” she said. “And our choice was to be really involved in the community and be a part of community fundraising efforts.”
Ken Entz, Susan’s husband, said many ideas for the gym’s fundraising efforts come from talking to members and hearing about what issues are affecting their lives and the community.
The gym’s staff has also participated in the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides walk for breast cancer and has held a head shaving fundraiser for St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which funds childhood cancer research. So far this year, the gym has donated $1495 to charitable causes.
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