Patrick Walsh Bringing TMPL Gym to Williamsburg
By Abigail Nehring July 15, 2024 5:07 pm
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Truth Social investor Patrick Walsh will take TMPL, his discotheque-style gym that doesn’t have time for the letter e, across the East River to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Commercial Observer has learned.
TMPL signed a 20-year lease for 17,765 square feet on the ground floor and lower level of the Hotel Indigo at 500 Metropolitan Avenue, according to broker KSR.
Asking rent was $60 per square foot, said KSR’s Eli Yadid, who arranged the deal for the tenant and landlord Chetrit Group along with Rafi Benor and Nathan Ades.
Ultra-chiseled gym guru David Barton opened the luxury chain’s first location in Hell’s Kitchen in 2016, then sold it to Walsh the following year. But things haven’t been copacetic between the two, with Barton suing Walsh’s company for allegedly misusing TMPL funds, partly to invest in Truth Social, The Real Deal reported. The two settled out of court for an unknown amount in December, according to TRD.
Meanwhile, two former TMPL employees sued Walsh last fall for sexual misconduct, The Daily Beast reported.
But the legal ordeals haven’t stopped the sceney gym from expanding across Manhattan, where it currently has five locations, according to its website. The Williamsburg outpost will be its first outside of Manhattan.
“We thought Williamsburg would be the best fit for TMPL’s first Brooklyn location, and the Indigo was great because of the wide radius around it,” Yadid said.
The retail space at the bottom of 500 Metropolitan has been vacant since the Chetrit Group completed the 14-story development in 2017, according to Yadid. Hotel Indigo occupies a commercial condominium that spans seven floors of the building at the corner of Metropolitan Avenue and Rodney Street, according to city property records. Floors eight through 14 are residential units.
Unlike rival gym Equinox, which has a location at 246 Bedford Avenue and another one opening at the former Domino Sugar Refinery on Kent Avenue, TMPL chose a location further from the East River waterfront so it could pull “from the population in all directions,” Yadid said.
Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.
