Tomorrow, a grand opening for (already open) Chelsea Piers fitness center in base/basement of 595 Dean Street. Leaning into Prospect Heights, not Pacific Park.

Photos June 15/Norman Oder

Chelsea Piers to open sports and fitness facility in Prospect Heights, TimeOut NY told us 6/9/23. "And they’re celebrating with free gym classes, games, giveaways and more." 

That's at 595 Dean Street, the new, two-tower development. The club opened June 5 and, as shown in the photo at right, so is the associated Canteen. The club hours are 5:30 am to 10 pm weekdays, 8:30 am to 8 pm on weekends, with fewer hours for the Kids Clubhouse.

Tomorrow, there will be free exercise classes from 3-7 pm (sign up on Eventbrite), as well as, to quote TimeOut, freebies from "R&D Foods and Van Leeuwen, a silent auction to support the Chelsea Piers Scholarship Foundation (CPSF), exclusive tours with the facility's Membership and Training Team, as well as patio games and giveaways."

As the screenshot at right from a Facebook sponsored post shows, they're going full bore into Prospect Heights, without, um, mentioning Pacific Park (as far as I know. An Instagram mini-video ends with some trainers gathering on a brownstone stoop.

Chelsea Piers field house, fitness club set for grand opening in Brooklyn, the New York Post's loyal Steve Cuozzo wrote 6/11/23, calling it a "community-oriented facility" and a "family-friendly center."

Giving back?

Patch duly noted 6/13/23:

The launch will also mean the beginning of the Chelsea Piers Foundation, a pot that will reach $1 million to help "ensure underserved youth have access to and can participate in Chelsea Piers sports programming," a representative told Patch.

In other words, they expect to make a lot of money--as one observer also predicted--but want to give "something" back.

Consider: none of the articles, surely based on press releases, mentioned that the space for the field house and fitness center was approved by Empire State Development, the state authority that oversees/shepherds Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, as a swap for parking.

East Tower, Chelsea Piers

ESD then classified the new space as "recreational" rather than commercial space or retail space, both of which were capped and thus would've required a new state approval process, delaying the construction and giving the public some leverage.

Nor did ESD consider, as advocates proposed, any reciprocal public benefit or commitment in exchange for the permission to proceed.

Also unmentioned: the very curious situation, in which the East Tower of 595 Dean, in foreground at right, has ceded its front entrance to Chelsea Piers, combining the front desk to the two-tower project at the West Tower, and leaving it exceedingly murky where, exactly--beyond the underground passage from the West Tower--residents of the East Tower should access their building.