The Metra station on Central Street in Evanston. Photo: Zol87 from Chicago, IL, USA / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Orangetheory Fitness, a franchised interval-training studio, held a ribbon cutting at its new Evanston location, 2800 Central St., on Wednesday, March 19, 2014, at 12:15 p.m. Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl, 6th Ward Ald. Mark Tendam, members of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce, and representatives of the City of Evanston and the Central Street Business Association were invited.
The studio is owned by David Lanz. According to a January 2014 report in the Evanston Review, it was scheduled to open on Central Street the following month, so the ribbon cutting followed the first weeks of classes.
How the workout works
Orangetheory is a one-hour group class built around intervals. Participants alternate between cardiovascular work and strength training, using equipment such as treadmills, rowing machines, suspension trainers and free weights. Everyone wears a heart-rate monitor, and the goal is to spend a set share of the hour in a high-intensity target zone, which the company calls the “orange zone.” An instructor leads each class.
The company, based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was young and growing quickly. At the time of the Review report it had 61 locations in the United States and more than 200 in development.
Lanz is a University of Delaware graduate and a certified personal trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine, and he had owned several small businesses before opening the studio. Dana Leonard, a certified trainer who also coached girls basketball at North Shore Country Day School, was named as one of the instructors. Memberships and session packages were sold from a sales office two doors from the studio.
Central Street
The studio sits in the Central Street shopping district on Evanston’s north side, a stretch of independent shops, restaurants and services near the Central Street Metra station. Elaine Kemna-Irish, executive director of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce, said at the time that the chamber welcomed another health and wellness business that offered a different type of workout, one centered on cardiovascular and strength training.
Listings for the studio, including a Northwestern University vendor page, still show it at the same address.
Daniel Okafor covers business, startups and the Innovators section for The Evanston Edge.
