Introducing Rockville Sport&Health from Sport&Health Clubs on Vimeo.
Area fitness company Sport&Health is getting closer to opening its 32,000-square-foot facility in Federal Realty’s much anticipated Pike & Rose project.
A promotional video the released last week shows images of the facility’s construction and promises the “most advanced fitness equipment, cutting-edge group fitness classes, plush amenities, incredible trainers and inspiring Mind/Body programs.”
The gym is set to be one of the many attractions in Pike & Rose’s “crown jewel” building, which will also include a music venue, luxury movie theater and restaurants. It will have an outdoor studio space on an upstairs area looking toward the White Flint Metro station a few blocks away.
But in another reminder of the area’s much-discussed identity issue, the gym will be known as the Rockville Sport&Health club. This despite its location in the middle of the Pike & Rose neighborhood, part of the White Flint Sector Plan, in what many people refer to as North Bethesda and just less than a mile south of the actual City of Rockville border.
It will join the Rockville Whole Foods grocery store (an anchor tenant at North Bethesda Market located even farther from Rockville) as another major business that’s chosen to retain the Rockville moniker.
Some contend the area around the White Flint Metro station should be known as Rockville. A group of developers, including Rockville-based Federal Realty, attempted to restart a cohesive branding process for the area earlier this year.
That effort has apparently been put aside, or at least delayed. In July, Federal Realty officials told the White Flint Downtown Advisory Board they were planning a hold a public charrette in the next few months where stakeholders would help come up with a list of 5-10 names. Those names would then lead to some sort of selection in the fall.
No news of the charrette has been announced. Leadership of the Downtown Advisory Board has made it clear it’s not interested in taking the lead on the naming issue, which for years had been a topic of disagreement between the area’s major developers.
The Rockville Sport & Health club is scheduled to open later this year. It already opened a preview center in Pike & Rose, behind the Starbucks at Old Georgetown Road and Rockville Pike.
The address is 11594 Old Georgetown Rd., Rockville — at least according to the gym. It’s North Bethesda, according to Google Maps and probably a few other folks.
Video via Sport&Health Clubs
