David Barton returns to Chelsea with ‘Gym U’ facility
Gym guru David Barton has returned to Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood with a reinvention of the same space his fitness facility occupied until a decade ago.
“I love this location and I needed a gym to work out in,” Barton told The Post. “This is my home and this space was my baby.”
Barton really did need a local gym where he could pump iron — as Page Six exclusively reported last month that he and his wife, Susanne Bartsch, were kicked out of a Crunch facility earlier this year when they caught wind of his new project.
The 35,000-square-foot project is known as “Gym U” — as in University — and opened with a packed VIP party on May 31, and to the public on June 2. It’s located at 215 W. 23rd St.
Barton got into the fitness biz after college, when he became a personal trainer and then “saved my pennies.”
As a nightlife denizen himself, the detail-oriented Barton learned from that club hospitality environment how to make his own clients feel at home in a fitness facility.
“I wanted to make it OK for cool people to go to the gym and have a place where … people who went to clubs would feel comfortable,” he said, so they could “look better naked.”
As such, Barton deployed great music, lighting and design details to translate that sensual nightclub experience to fitness.
“I came from the clubs and … I learned from the clubs,” he said.
Barton lived across the street at the Chelsea Hotel and had already established other fitness locations when he was approached in 2003 by developer Mitchell Marks to create the gym on the lower levels of “this beautiful building.”
All of Barton’s city spots attracted a cross-section of New Yorkers — from club kids and designers, like Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein, to other A-listers like Gwen Stefani, Anna Wintour and Anderson Cooper.
But a decade later in 2013, when Barton left his company, disagreements among the remaining partners put that business into bankruptcy and the spot was rented to a different fitness chain.
As that lease was ending, Marks reached out to Barton again and the two cut a new deal, sans brokers. Because Marks is also a partner in the location, Barton says the terms are “complicated,” but they certainly cost a lot more than in 2003, when the rent was a mere $20 a foot and the buildout nearly $4 million.
But for Gym U, Barton has upped both its interior design — and the facility’s health, wellness and fitness game — with new technologies and recovery schemes.
“I completely changed the look from when I last had it. Before I was drawing out what was architecturally significant,” he said. “Now, I have accentuated the volumes and the space.”
He added, “I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
A bright red chandelier hangs over the entry staircase, while one of the main internal stairs is painted in the vibrant International Klein Blue tone.
There’s also a public café, the Mush Room, developed in collaboration with Billy Gilroy from Employees Only with a menu based on the metabolic benefits of mushrooms that will include cocktails, healthy food, smoothies and coffee. But until they are legal, no psychedelics.
Other design collaborators include renowned architects Charles Renfro and Stephen Alton, carpenter Rose Wood and the award-winning lighting design firm Focus Lighting.
The rear wall of the first floor is dominated by several, 11-foot high fans, with lighting that will change with the music spun by an in-house DJ — whose blue-lit booth sits on the side of the large atrium overlooking the workout areas.
“I wanted to build a wall of giant fans, floor-to-ceiling and he is a brilliant carpenter and artist,” Barton said of Peter Brescia.
The décor is disco dark with rows of black fitness machines accentuated by their shiny chrome bars and amber-lit structural columns. You can catch your reflection in large mirrors placed here and there — or in an entire wall of copper that contributes to the ambiance with a warm, reflective glow.
There are also side rooms where members can be immersed in an ozone capsule, partake in push IV therapy — or be detoxed and get personal training.
“We have an incredible selection of strengthening and classes and recovery treatments with Nila J. of Fuel Stop,” he said of the nutritionist and lifestyle coach, whose clients include Iman.
Barton says a collaboration with Precision Health Alliance and its artificial-intelligence methodology will also help clients make lifestyle changes based on their genetics, hormones, developmental pathways, and current state of health and stress. “They are at the forefront of this and advancing the understanding of this approach to health,” Barton said.
Gym U is also incorporating Newfit’s Neubie electric muscle stimulation machine that is said to improve the health and well-being of people who suffer from muscle weakness, chronic pain or other musculoskeletal conditions.
The device is supposed to add strength, muscle and bone density — every benefit that comes from exercise — but in less time. “Everyone who does it is hooked,” Barton said. “I had injuries and pain from having worked out for a long time and now have no pain and it completely alleviated it.”
However, Barton hurt his knee and this week is using a flowered cane to ensure every vibe is perfect at the new Gym U. At 5-foot-5, he cuts a unique figure with his long-ish, but now greying, hair cascading upwards from a headscarf, while his upper-body muscles and veins are bursting out of a ripped Bagabones Contortion Society T-shirt and cut-off denim shorts.
During the pandemic, Barton had been in what he called “retirement mode” but collaborated from home and designed the Anvil Fitness Club in Moscow.
“Now I can’t go there,” he said sadly. “The war thing got in the way.”
