World Gym coming to Top End after Palmerston development approved

A world-class gym franchise will be coming to the Top End for the first time – stocked with modern equipment and featuring an on-site cafe and creche – after its application was approved. SEE THE PLANS.

The development application of a World Gym has been approved for Palmerston. Picture: File

An internationally-recognised gym franchise is set to come to the Territory for the first time after a development application was approved for a site at a once-empty Palmerston retail precinct.

The gym is set to be constructed in a portion of the long-empty building that once housed Bunnings at 2 Palmerston Cct, at the corner of University and Roystonea Ave.

The facility will be slot alongside the Anaconda store that opened late last year in the revitalised precinct that had sat empty since August 2020.

Site and locality of the World Gym at Palmerston. Picture: Cunnington Rosse.

Locality satellite diagram. Picture: Cunnington Rosse.

The 1,531sq m gym, is expected to have a maximum membership of 2000 to 2500 people, with a maximum of 600 visits a day.

Planning documents state that 30 people an hour during off-peak periods, and 90 during peak will attend the gym.

The gym is set to be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

An extra 17 parking bays will also be added during development taking the total to 215 individual carparking bays on the site.

Inside, the gym will contain a reception area, cafe, creche room, group fitness and functional training rooms, open training areas, workout machines.

It will also contain free weights for the use of members, toilets, showers, change rooms with lockers, ancillary storage, a communications room and office.

Proposed leisure and recreation tenancy ground floor plan for World Gym at Palmerston. Picture: Cunnington Rosse.

The application for the development of the gym pointed to the Darwin Regional Land Use Plan that reads “Palmerston Town Centre seeks vibrant retail floor space to underpin a mix of commercial, social, administrative and local cultural functions in a street based environment” as part of their pitch.

The gym will assist in the “reactivation of an existing structure within an under-utilised site” and will “positively impact” the area.

World Gym businesses are independently owned and operated fitness centres that are scattered across the globe, with the first opening in Los Angeles more than 46 years ago.

According to the World Gym website, they offer personal training and coaching, group fitness classes, athletic programs, recovery and wellness options, tanning and red light therapy across their sites.

There is no information yet on when construction is set to get underway, nor is there a planned opening date for the business.