By Sara Page and Elizabeth Farina

Driving down state route 60 in Midlothian, it’s hard to miss all the construction going on at the intersection at route 288. In the middle of all that activity will be the latest addition to the area’s plethora of businesses trying to get folks in shape and in a healthy state of mind.

Gold’s Gym is set to open their new 45,000 square-foot, $8 million facility in March. Though it looks like a lot of steel and concrete at the moment, by March it will have taken on a much sleeker design according to Gold’s Gym Richmond chief executive officer Mike Krongaard.

“For us in Richmond, it’s really quite a step up,” Krongaard said. “It’s state of the art everything, the finishes are first class. For instance there’s a water wall, real sexy finishes, the bathrooms have granite. It’s just a very up-scale, classy gym.”

The facility will be split into two levels with cardiovascular workout equipment on the upper level overlooking the pool and weight lifting areas on the lower level. Other areas include a basketball court, three group exercise rooms including a mind and body room and a Lady’s Gold’s, which is a workout area for female members only. Exclusive to this particular Gold’s Gym location will be the cardio cinema where members can go to get a good workout on anything from elliptical machines to bikes and treadmills while watching a feature-length film.

“Everything is new and sexy but we’re staying true to our heritage. At the end of the day, we believe that 90-percent of the population does cardio and weights and that’s what we do the best, but we’re also throwing everything in there. We’ll have a wonderful daycare center. We’ll have a juice bar, just a nice, comfortable area to sit [and relax],” Krongaard said.

According to Krongaard, plans to have a Gold’s Gym in the routes 60 and 288 corridor have been in the works for about three years, but didn’t come to fruition until the concept for the new shopping center came into being.

American Family Fitness Southside General Manager Francine Wood was proud of the quick progress to open the facility for the members mid-November. A new AFF facility will be opening next year in Midlothian village.

“We have been looking in this little quadrant and actually we had a piece of land contracted … [but] it fell through … If you look at the traffic count, the growth, the demographics … we just thought this was so convenient that we need to be here,” Krongaard said.

Gold’s Gym expects to create about 100 full- and part-time positions with the new facility.

So far, Krongaard says, the membership presale is going very well. Presale memberships include a discounted rate and are available until the opening by visiting the membership trailer at the construction site or by calling (804) 379-5690.

For American Family Fitness Southside, moving to a new location is a piece of low-calorie cake. General Manager Francine Wood, who has been with American Family Fitness for 16 years, was there during the rapid move from the Arboretum location to the Steinmart Shopping Center at 9748 Midlothian Turnpike. Originally, when American Family Fitness found out the lease was up and wasn’t to be renewed, a new plan emerged. The temporary site, which opened mid-November, will remain open for two years. “I think a lot of our members, because we were saying it was a temporary space, they were thinking we were throwing equipment in this warehouse,” Wood said. “The look on their faces when they walked in the store was great.”

The facility created in six weeks when the company remodeled a former Office Max includes many of the amenities clients have come to expect from American Family Fitness. Men’s and women’s locker rooms, a cycle room, and the Group X room for yoga, pilates and any type of step-class. There is also a Kid Zone to provide parents two-hours of certified child care while they work on their health and fitness program. There are fitness instructors monitoring the floors to assist members with equipment questions as well as personal trainers to help motivate members reach their fitness goals.  “We did this for our members because we appreciate them,” Wood said.

American Family Fitness has approximately 100,000 members throughout Richmond and Northern Virginia and will expand into the Village of Midlothian late 2009.  “Our Woolridge location, we’re excited about that location,” Wood said.

For more information about American Family Fitness, call (804) 330-3400 or visit their web site linked at midlothianexchange.com.