A 30,000-square-foot Crunch Fitness gym is headed to Glen Lea Centre near Mechanicsville, bringing hot yoga, a dry cold plunge, saunas and massage chairs to a shopping center at the corner of Mechanicsville Turnpike and Laburnum Avenue. The gym is expected to open in the second quarter of 2027 and will mark the brand's first local location to use its newest design format.
JF Fitness of North America, the operator behind the project, plans to build the gym at 3808 Mechanicsville Turnpike, according to Richmond BizSense. The company already runs five Crunch Fitness locations in the Richmond region and is financing the new build-out with a loan from Pinnacle Financial Partners, a Tennessee-based bank. The project is anticipated to cost around $3 million to build out and equip, per the same report.
Notably, the square footage is described differently depending on the source. Richmond BizSense reports the planned gym at 30,000 square feet, while a separate Thalhimer brokerage update puts the signed lease at 29,916 square feet. Thalhimer's report also notes that the additions of Crunch, La Plaza International Market and Woody’s Bar and Grill bring Glen Lea Centre to 96% occupancy, with just 3,375 square feet still available for lease at the center.
Two Empty Storefronts Becoming One Big Gym
The new Crunch will take over two storefronts previously occupied by grocery store Save A Lot and clothing store It's Fashion Metro, combining them into a single footprint. JF Fitness operator John Freeland said combining the spaces was necessary to create an adequate footprint for the gym, the station's report notes. Connie Jordan Nielsen, Nicki Jassy and Alicia Brown represented the landlord in the lease, according to Thalhimer.
Freeland pointed to a gap in nearby fitness options and the area's commuter traffic as reasons for the location. “There's not a lot of fitness options nearby, and a lot of people commute to Richmond from there,” he said, per the article, describing the site as sitting along a commuter route between Hanover and Richmond.
Crunch 3.0 Brings Spa-Style Perks
The Mechanicsville location will be the first in the Richmond region to incorporate Crunch 3.0, the brand's latest design iteration, featuring a hot yoga studio, dry cold plunge, saunas and massage chairs. A Crunch Fitness news release describes the Crunch 3.0 design as combining modern aesthetics with enhanced functionality, noting the format first debuted with a gym in Texas a couple of years before this latest announcement.
Freeland said the amenities reflect what today's gym members are looking for. “They want luxury amenities like you have at a very high-end gym, and they want to pay a reasonable price,” he said. He also pointed to steady industry growth, adding that more people use gyms every year, even with GLP drugs and so forth.
Membership Costs and a Regional Comparison
Local Crunch Fitness memberships start around $13 a month, according to the 2026 report — up from the roughly $10 monthly starting price cited in an earlier 2024 Richmond BizSense report on Freeland's expansion plans. For comparison, a Crunch Fitness location that opened in Fredericksburg in 2025 advertised memberships starting at $9.99 per month, according to the Fredericksburg Chamber of Commerce, which also described that $3 million facility's amenities, including a group fitness studio, cycling classes, a HIIT training area, HydroMassage beds and a sauna.
Other existing Richmond-region Crunch gyms are located at 5420 Glenside Drive, 10470 Ridgefield Parkway and 5750 Brook Road in Henrico, 3600 W. Broad St. in Richmond, and Chesterfield Towne Center, per Richmond BizSense's latest report.
A Bigger Office to Match a Bigger Footprint
JF Fitness is headquartered at the Spur office building in Scott's Addition and plans to expand its own office there from 2,500 square feet to 6,500 square feet, reflecting the company's broader growth. The operator expects to finish 2026 with 41 Crunch gyms and plans to grow to 55 gyms by the end of 2027, according to the report.
JF Fitness currently operates Crunch locations across Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, and is expanding into Louisiana, per Freeland. Freeland is the majority owner of JF Fitness, with Trive Capital and 808 Capital Partners holding minority stakes after investing in the company in 2024. In an earlier 2024 report on that investment, Freeland said he aimed to add eight to 10 gyms annually over four years, with a goal of 60 Crunch gyms under the JF Fitness banner by the end of 2028.
