Getting Fit, Going Green:

Bushwick Welcomes its First Eco-Gym

Every time a new member wanders up to the makeshift check-in counter at Bushwick’s newest gym facility, Green Fitness, General Manager Rachel Devlin bounds out of her chair to greet the visitor as if she’s known him or her forever. She smiles sweetly and makes small talk, and personally ushers the gym-goer inside.

“We’re trying to build a community here,” Devlin said of the brand new gym, which celebrated its grand opening on December 21st. “And also offer people a chance to take an environmental position within their community space.”

Green Fitness Studio, located at 232 Varet Street, is an almost entirely eco-friendly facility, from the floors, which are made out of rubber from old tires; to the equipment, which is all recycled and refurbished; to the workout rooms themselves, which are sealed in triple-pane glass that provides the same thermal transfer as brick to keep the building insulated. The lighting is low, and exclusively LED to save energy. There are individual workshop rooms where a variety of classes are held, including spin, palates, five different dance classes and five types of yoga. There is also an on-site café offering healthy snacks and smoothies, and a fully-sodded outdoor garden, which will eventually host fitness classes in the spring and summer, when the weather permits. In addition to 15 on-staff fitness coaches, Green Fitness employs a set of dieticians and aestheticians, who conduct workshops on wellness, health and diet.

“It’s always been my dream to have a yoga center with all these other resources available,” said Devlin, who is a certified yogi and teaches bikram yoga classes at Green Fitness. “It’s amazing to be able to hop on a machine and do cardio, and lift weights to improve balance, and then take a yoga class. Exercise doesn’t have to be something that you dread. It can be really fun—it makes you feel really good, and really empowered. You can even come here and take a dance class, and learn some new moves for when you go out on Friday night!”

Green Fitness aims to create a supportive environment conducive to fostering healthy habits and lifestyle choices, including environmental consciousness and responsibility—the eco element was certainly no accident. The owner of the building Barry Borgen, who runs a window guard manufacturing and powder paint company out of the industrial warehouse downstairs, was approached by a Bushwick community member sometime in the spring of 2009, who expressed the need for a gym in the neighborhood. According to Devlin, Borgen took on the project—initially meant as a 2,000 square-foot facility, with only a few scattered machines—and it grew and grew, thanks to nearly 500 responses to a survey Borgen posted online about what the Bushwick community would like to see it become. However, the environmental aspect was always a driving force.

“Barry Borgen started working on powder paint projects in California, where the environmental standards are much higher, and he’s been interested in the green concept ever since,” Devlin said. “And, there’s really no reason a gym shouldn’t be green. It’s efficient in so many ways.”

In addition to encouraging environmental stewardship, Green Fitness also aims to assimilate into the already-existing Bushwick community by doubling as a community resource center. In the future, Devlin hopes to help organize art shows, exhibits, concerts and parties, as a way to bring the community together while also offering group membership packages to local businesses and apartment complexes. In the next year, Devlin hopes to feature an “artist of the month,” who will have the opportunity to install an exhibition in the Green Fitness space, and throw a party. Devlin also explained that, though it is an already-exemplary facility in terms of environmental efficiency, in the near future she would love to take Green Fitness off the grid altogether by installing solar panels on the roof, creating a gray-water management system to reuse shower water and runoff, and acquire equipment that could actually generate enough energy to power the studio.

“That way, you wouldn’t have to count calories anymore,” Devlin said excitedly. “You could actually count watts. How cool would that be!”