Erie PA LECOM fitness center to reopen to public after six-year hiatus
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- Upgrades to the facility include remodeled showers, new exercise equipment, and the removal of saunas to prevent viral spread.
- A new premium membership tier offers exclusive locker rooms and other wellness perks for a higher monthly fee.
The LECOM Medical Fitness and Wellness Center, 5401 Peach St., is reopening to the public, nearly six years after it closed in March 2020 during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
LECOM Health staff and Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine students have been permitted to use the three-story facility for several years, but members will have access starting on or around March 1.
“We are in the process of remodeling all of the showers, and everything is ripped out right now,” said Dr. Silvia Ferretti, LECOM provost. “That’s why we have delayed the opening until March.”
Fitness centers in Erie and across Pennsylvania were forced to close at the start of the pandemic. They were permitted to reopen during the summer of 2020, though many closed again later in the year when Erie County’s number of COVID-19 cases surged.
LECOM Health officials chose not to reopen during the pandemic because they felt that the spread of COVID-19 within the Erie community did not make it sufficiently safe to do so. They did allow LECOM students to start using it in March 2021 and employees in January 2022.
LECOM fitness center took out saunas to prevent viral spread
LECOM Health is reopening the fitness center to the public now because there is better understanding of how COVID spreads and how to control potential spread, Ferretti said.
“We know it is airborne, and it spreads better when the air is warmer and there isn’t good aeration,” Ferretti said. “So, we have made some changes, including taking out the saunas.”
Other changes include remodeling the bathrooms, resurfacing the pools, replacing the exercise floors, and buying $250,000 worth of treadmills, ellipticals and recumbent exercise bicycles. A new golf simulator also was purchased.
Premium memberships include locker room, wellness check-ins
The biggest change is the creation of new locker rooms for the center’s premium members. Those members will pay $149 a month instead of the $109 a month for a regular membership.
Premium members also will have access to a recovery room, priority reservations for exercise classes and to see an athletic trainer, and optional quarterly wellness check-ins.
“We are also able to convert our gym into pickleball courts,” Ferretti said. “We bought the equipment right before we closed.”
The fitness center, which originally opened in March 2009, also changed its minimum age for membership, raising it from 16 to 18.
Contact David Bruce at [email protected]. Follow him on X @ETNBruce.
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