Planet Fitness is expanding its Worcester presence to Downtown after inking a 12-year lease at the Mercantile Center.
The new 15,578-square-foot location is set to open this summer and will be accessed via Front Street near the signage for the Worcester District Registry of Deeds, according to a press release issued on Wednesday by Franklin Realty Advisors, the Wellesley-based firm which owns Mercantile Center.
“As we turn the page into 2025, we’re looking forward to working out alongside a growing base of neighbors and residents here in Downtown,” Chip Norton, managing director of Mercantile Center and Franklin Realty Advisors, said in the press release. “Gyms provide a convenient space for social and physical activity, and few locations can engender a greater sense of community than Planet Fitness. We’re delighted to welcome them to town and can’t wait for the doors to open.”
The Mercantile Center location will join existing Planet Fitness centers at 68 Stafford St. and 535 Lincoln St. in Worcester, as well as a location just across the municipal border in Shrewsbury’s White City shopping plaza. The national fitness chain headquartered in Hampton, New Hampshire, has more than 2,600 locations across the country, including 15 in Central Massachusetts, according to its website.
The Planet Fitness location will be just over a hundred yards from Worcester Common Fitness, a fitness center which opened in @ the common, the building formerly known as the Midtown Mall, in November 2023.
The new Planet Fitness will be operated by Core Development and Management, a Foxborough-based independent franchisee of Planet Fitness locations.
It will be located in a separate space from that vacated by CVS in November 2023 and the space being utilized by “Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience,” which opened at Mercantile Center in November. When first launched, the Van Gogh attraction had tickets available through the end of January, but tickets have since been added through the end of March.
Planet Fitness’ lease was brokered by Todd Alexander of Worcester’s Kelleher & Sadowsky Associates. Financial terms of the lease were not disclosed.
Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.
