Cork gym reopens under new ownership following €3.5m investment

A popular Cork city gym that went into liquidation in 2018 with debts of more than €660,000 has re-opened under new ownership following a €3.5 million investment.

District Health and Leisure, formerly Source Health and Fitness, in Silversprings, Cork, will employ up to 40 full and part-time staff at it’s 48,000 sq ft premises, which has undergone a complete overhaul.

The building, spread over a number of floors, is wheelchair accessible and the gym includes equipment suitable for use by people with a disability. Two of its six changing rooms are designed to cater for wheelchair users and to operate as family changing rooms, complete with baby changing tables.

Galway man Séamus Crowe, who is operating the new gym, said a number of previous Source staff have been re-hired, including well-known swimming coach Eilis Burn.

Mr Crowe, a former professional soccer player with Wolverhampton Wanderers, has the financial backing of McHugh Property Holdings who purchased the property for €790,000 in late 2018.

District, which only opened last Monday, has already signed up 800 members, Mr Crowe said.

It includes a state-of-the-art gym with pin-loaded weights; a tiered room for spinning classes with night-club calibre lighting and sound system; a refurbished pool/sauna/steam room area with an ice-water bucket shower; a sports injury clinic; a beauty salon; a pilates/yoga room which opens out onto a sizeable balcony for outdoor classes once the weather improves; a café; creche (pending Tusla approval); squash courts; a giant indoor astro-turf pitch for public hire; and an outdoor astro-turf pitch, also for public hire.

Mr Crowe said it had been “a long 12 months since we first viewed the property”, followed by seven months of hard work before opening.

Mr Crowe started his commercial gym career about 10 years ago in Galway in a 12,000sq ft warehouse “where we used my dad’s empty fishing barrels and other small bits of equipment”. Today, he operates two gyms.