A Personal Crusade Results in a Major Amenity Upgrade

When Kelli Roiter bought a condo apartment on Manhattan’s Gold Coast, just north of Washington Square Park, she saw the building’s gym as its prize amenity. She also saw that it was dingy and dated, especially the equipment. The gym needed some attention. 

So Roiter, an executive at an investment banking firm, got elected to the condo board and began lobbying for a gym upgrade, arguing that the pre-war building didn’t have space to compete with new properties and their high-end amenities. You work with what you’ve got, Roiter argued, and eventually she won approval to undertake a revamp with money from the reserve fund. The budget was tight. Roiter enlisted fellow unit-owner Clayton Orrigo, a broker who specializes in luxury properties, and the pair rolled up their sleeves. 

The first thing they tackled was the flooring, which was painted a stale, schoolhouse red. They chose black rubber fitness mats for half the room; for the rest, they installed vinyl and rubber-padded flooring with a faux wood-grain surface. “It’s called Bounce,” says Roiter. “It looks just like what you’d see on a basketball court, but it’s soft. That, combined with the black mats, upgraded the look right away with very minimal work.” 

Orrigo suggested covering the  walls with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. “It’s a little bit of an optical illusion that makes the room look bigger, so we put them everywhere we could,” he says. New light fixtures were installed, replacing the old ones, which gave off a yellowish cast that had made the old gym look drab. Roiter decided to switch to dimmable LED lights “because we didn’t want them to be glaring,” she says. “You walk into some of these gyms and it’s so bright it’s almost electric. This way, people can adjust the light to whatever they feel is appropriate.” For residents who want a little diversion with their workout, two flat-screen TVs were mounted on the walls, along with an overhead surround-sound system. 

As for the exercise equipment, Roiter and Orrigo selected a range of equipment fit for a full-body workout. That includes all-new free weights, kettlebells, and BOSU balls, two gym-quality Woodway treadmills with their own TVs, a Cybex Bravo, and a WaterRower rowing machine. When one of the existing exercise bikes broke, he suggested replacing it with a next-generation Peloton, which streams indoor spin classes – live or on-demand – to its HD screen (the monthly subscription fee is $39, paid by the condominium). 

It took Roiter and Orrigo six months of planning, but the gym was closed for only a week during the actual revamp, which was completed last winter at a cost of $100,000. Roiter gives a shout-out to Jay Solinsky at Classic Realty, the building’s sponsor and board president. “You can have a president who just says, ‘I don’t care. We’re not spending the money.’ That was absolutely not the case here.” 

The condo is already reaping dividends from its amenity upgrade. There has been a dramatic increase in gym attendance, with people waiting in line for the machines. “Before, I wouldn’t use it much because it was depressing down there,” says Orrigo. “Now I go several times a week with my trainer. It’s bright, white and clean, and it feels like your own personal gym.” 

During her regular workouts, Roiter has noticed another upside. “I see real estate brokers bringing prospective buyers to see the fitness room even before showing them the apartment,” she says. “You see their faces light up, and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is really nice.’ The units are selling well. They’re selling above the ask, in record time. It’s been positive all around.”