When he decided to propose to his girlfriend, Chris Furgala spent hours trying to think of somewhere special to pop the question. The 41-year-old Torontonian wanted the big moment to happen in “a place that meant something to both of us. A place that was part of our story.”
Then it hit him: The gym.
Since they joined fitness club 10XTO in 2020, Furgala and his now wife, Madison, who are both airline pilots, have spent several days a week there. They work out in the 4,000-square-foot facility’s exercise room, play tennis, squash and pickleball, relax in the sauna, cold plunge and infrared light beds, and swim in the year-round rooftop pool that’s part of the adjoining Hotel X.
They’ve also taken to bringing their toddler and baby on weekends to play in the children’s play centre, sometimes dropping them off so they can grab a drink or a bite at the nearby bars and restaurants. But they spend most of their time rallying on court four, their favourite couples’ pastime.
They like that the club has a community feel; it has become part of their social life in a meaningful way. “No one goes to church anymore,” Chris said, “so this is the next best thing.” Suffice it to say, it’s their home away from home.
“That’s exactly what we want it to be,” said Jordan Sadowski, 10XTO general manager. “We want our members to come here and stay here. We want them to base their life here.”
Gone are the days of quick jaunts in and out of big-box gyms. A new guard of members’ wellness clubs is enticing people to spend much more of their time on the premises by positioning themselves as a one-stop-lifestyle shop.
“It’s definitely the buzz right now,” said Nancy Sawler, vice president at The Adelaide Club, a longtime financial district gym. “It’s part of this new third space movement.”
Not home. Not the workplace. The third space is a neutral location for meeting friends, doing business, taking in talks and concerts, connecting with community and having fun. The concept can be traced back to Ancient Greece when Athenians would flock to the Agora, a central square, to do all of the above.
People have been craving communal spaces since the social distancing of COVID, Sawler said, places where they can enjoy face-to-face interactions without having to buy a meal or feel their boss breathing down their neck. They want the feeling of a place like Cheers, the fictional sitcom pub “where everyone knows your name.”
Nearly 40 per cent of Canadians “sometimes feel lonely,” according to a 2024 StatsCan survey. Daily visits from friends have plummeted by nearly 50 per cent in just over three decades, according to research conducted by the YMCA and StatsCan. Meanwhile, 77 per cent of young adults aged 26 to 34 feel like they don’t belong — and 65 per cent wish there were more “third places.”
COVID hit millennials hard. “It was not good for a lot of young people,” said Jeffrey York, CEO of Altea Active in Liberty Village, “especially here where they live in very small spaces and were confined to their apartments.” That’s why the facility has a wide-open space at the entrance, and places to socialize. “You should see this place at 5 p.m.,” he said.
York said Altea “isn’t a gym,” describing it instead as the “Farm Boy of fitness.” Last year, he moved over from the food retailer and is now applying the same model to wellness. “Farm Boy is not a grocery store,” he said. “It’s a place where you feel comfortable. The food is good, the service is great, the prices are fair. You feel like you’re going somewhere special. That’s what we’re trying to do with Altea.”
It’s clean and doesn’t smell like sweat. There’s a pool, Pilates Reformers and spin classes. “We have a smoothie bar and coffee. You can bring your laptop, you can meet your friends,” York said. “It’s just a place you want to be.”
The Adelaide Club has been operating as a fitness and social hub in the financial district for about 30 years, Sawler said. It has arrangements with various companies that encourage their employees to work remotely before or after working out.
Laptops are welcome in a central lounge that doubles as a venue for social events, like watching a big game on the big screen. And a new recovery room entices people to linger even longer on the hydromassage beds or compression suit chairs.
Of course, private wellness clubs don’t come cheap. Many charge initiation fees on top of monthly membership fees: Altea’s is a relatively low $100; 10XTO and the Adelaide Club both charge $1,500. But these are trending downward as clubs aim to attract a wider audience; for comparison, the old-guard mainstay Boulevard Club’s initial “lifetime membership” fee is $31,000, or $49,000 for a family.
There’s a two-year wait-list for the venerable lakefront club that opened in 1905, said general manager Paul Morrell. Prospective members’ names do “come up in front of the board directors. “Generally speaking, unless somebody objects, there’s usually not a problem.”
Morrell said while The Boulevard Club has been operating as a “third space” for 120 years, it is making efforts to evolve with the times: That includes loosening some of its rules; tennis whites are no longer required on the courts, and phones are now permitted across the property.
When Chris and Madison Furgala went looking for a club to join in 2020, they were hoping to build on the tennis hobby they had picked up on public outdoor courts during lockdowns, which had become more popular and harder to book.
They were sold when they saw 10XTO’s four expansive, glass-walled courts that make it feel like you’re playing tennis in the sky. From court 4, the top-floor court facing west, they could see the home they’d recently moved into together in the distance. In the evenings, they’d play while watching the sunset.
“It’s really stunning,” Chris said. Once he decided that was where he needed to ask Madison to be his wife, he enlisted the club management’s help, who were thrilled to book off the special court for the proposal.
One evening in October 2020, Chris waited by the net for Madison to arrive. Running late after work, she raced to the change rooms to put on her tennis clothes and took the elevator upstairs to the court, but paused when she saw the head tennis instructor — a friend, who would become a bridesmaid at her wedding. Madison said she stopped to chat, but “she was like, Madison, you should go, Chris is waiting. I was like, well, that’s weird.”
Worried Chris would be annoyed because she was late, Madison entered the court and walked sheepishly over to him. That’s when he got down on one knee. “I was shocked,” she said. “It was perfect, especially since he proposed on the court. But I was like, honey, I don’t think I can play tonight.”
