Lincoln Family Downtown YMCA

Really enjoy the YMCA and the diversity of people that come down here very clean gymnasium workout area the staff is very friendly and helpful. You can end up playing for hours down here they have classes for yoga weight training basketball swimming lessons and spin class!

The worst Y I have ever been to. Men’s locker and showers are disgusting. They allow under age children to use exercise equipment. Boys are playing and unruly in the men’s shower area. No respect or courtesy in the sauna or steam areas. Wet towels everywhere. The list goes on and on. I just resigned my membership and ask for a refund of my 2 year prepaid membership.

Staff are warm and inviting (edit), even if you’re having a bad day — they (from my own experiences, all employees) still accept you (aggressive face and all) as a decent person.
Pretty clean floors, some nice carpeting, acid stained and quad clear coat floor that stands out in the modern lightning scheme. The basketball courts, are well lit and the lightning there doesn’t confuse the eye when sun shines through nor during night and all lightning (B-​ball courts) are utilized. Even the restrooms located in the far reaches of the facility are well kept and stocked (being on a protein rich diet with lots of water testifies to this most uncomfortable admition .) Most of the YMCA side stairways are cement and are decorated with the beautiful warm (but not hot) aesthetic of the acid stain two tone 2 color scheme with diamond blade etched joint lines midnight black– all stairwells except the pool which has to remain with texture for obvious reasons.
The pool is very mild, never cold, the steam room is a plus, sometimes eucalyptus oil is profound in the air within the mens locker room. Sauna is tidy, whirlpool is never oversaturated with chemicals, but still has the right amount, by the smell I get from off gassing of the surface foam.
The basement portion of the gym is not just for extreme power lifters or jocks, there are skinny guys and toned women who show up in the basement workout rooms. Mostly people are wearing earphones to drown out the people around them, and there’s a classic rock station playing tunes through the day in this basement area of the gym. It’s a large area that is just as big as some gyms are in there whole entirety (square footage wise).
This is not a ‘ghetto’ facility, never has been, never will be. In the early 80’s parts of downtown Phoenix were considered skid row, and these homeless people who were sometimes junkies and winos would migrate through downtown during the blazing hot temperatures.
The architecture of the building is a post modern addition attached to a pre existing treasure of a brick foretress– maybe 15 stories high including the resident floors. The gym itself occupies 4 floors, which included a veranda/​indoor enclosed patio /​indoor jogging track which has a low impact foot/​knee friendly surface encircling the track. I (opinions are only opinions) believe that this gym did a great job with ASU in the remodeling of the building (including the addition of ASU’s portion) which blends with the red brick flawlessly and pleasingly. Sometimes architecture that blends early 1900’s buildings with post 90’s modern architecture have a certain Jeckyl and Hyde scheme going on.
This YMCA definitely shows what can be done in redesign incorporating energy-​efficient
All of the machinery are well kept and policies of clothing followed through otherwise bad things happen to upholstered surfaces.
One thing that keeps me there on a sense of mental fulfillment is that my 30 or so bucks a month doesn’t go to some huge corporate pocket. The money going into the YMCA effects the entire community. Not in the sense of communism (we all know communism is over and Asian capitalism is what’s up and comming, regardless of party affiliation), but, the community around the YMCA will be positively impacted.

This might be my favorite Y’ ever. I am from out of town and came in as a guest (that is a ymca bonus– visit other ymca locations when you are out of town).
Equipment is clean and well-​serviced
Towel service
Steam and sauna
Updated cardio and free weights
The staff went out of their way to make me feel at home. They provided towels, a lock and a parking pass.
Best service ever. Everyone was friendly, the equipment was all maintained, all clean everywhere and I loved my experience.
Thanks folks– great experience.

I like it!
The Downtown Y does double duty. One can exercise in the older Y section or head on over to the Sun Devil Fitness Center. The Sun Devil side has cardio machines with one’s own personal TV! The weight room is much better on the older Y side.
Price: Very decent. I do get a discount with my work.
Hours: Excellent, 5 am open time on weekdays, on weekends 7 am Sat and 9 am Sunday.
Parking: Free with sticker.
Location: Less than a mile from where I live. I save so much gas from not having to drive to a gym now!
Group exercise classes: In the older part of the Y, these can be confusing to find. The cycle room is on the third floor, as you maze your way up the stairs passed other areas of the gym that often seem deserted.
Cycle is a lot of fun. I think instructors should introduce themselves to new people, though.
Facility: there are plenty of cardio machines. I like that there are four rowing machines and a variety of others. The weight room in the older part of the Y is huge and has excellent equipment. Watch out for posers down here, ha!
There are lockers, showers, bathroom, and an indoor pool.
Staff: Most staff are friendly.

Have been going to the YMCA since I was a child and will not be going back. Turns out having young, immature, and disrespectful staff is too much to overlook. Had an extremely rude interaction with a young girl who worked behind the desk. I do not recommend you spending money on a membership at this location if you are over 23 years old. Place is for kids who don’t take working out seriously

Updated review:
The ASU side of the Y is open now, Y members can use the ASU side and can attend certain classes as well. The ASU students are not supposed to be attending Y classes but they do and no one regulates so why would they stop?
Parking is better now that construction is over– but no more covered spaces! the parking lot is allegedly patrolled but certain cars (aka old, ghetto, gold Nissan Altima) park in illegal parking spaces every weekday from 5pm and 6pm and I have never seen them receive a ticket (or park in a legal parking space like everyone else).
The front desk is still subpar and lackluster. I get it– your job is lame and that’s too bad, but you chose to work in customer service. If you don’t like it, go work somewhere else. I usually walk in without anyone acknowledging me and I leave the same way– this is excellent for retaining members (note my excessive sarcasm here).
The group exercise classes could certainly be improved but don’t wait around for that — the group fitness director doesn’t seem to care what members like… She recently hired an instructor to teach kickboxing during a very busy time– and the instructor has never taught kickboxing before. The class is terrible– skip it– stick with RIPPED on Mondays with Jaime. This is by far the best group ex class the Y offers.
Do indulge in personal training with Eric– you won’t regret the investment in yourself!
The only reasons I continue spending $ 45/​month for a Y membership is because of Jaime and Eric. The $ 19/​month at Gold’s Gym is looking better and better each day…

I worked out at this gym for a little under a year between April 2012 to March 2013. I had recently moved to Phoenix from the Chicago-​area and had been a member at my local Y in Illinois for 5+ years.
I’m not sure if my Illinois-​based YMCA is just super nice and I had become spoiled, or what the deal is, but I found this Y disappointing.
I went in for a tour and membership info when I first arrived in Phoenix. The membership fee was around $ 50/​month, which I found outrageous for the shape this place is in. It’s older (though apparently recently renovated?), small exercise rooms, and a maze of floors/​hallways/​stairs.
I knew after touring the place I couldn’t justify the price. I later found out that the Ys in the Valley participate in the fitness program through my medical insurance, which is $ 25/​month — that is the ONLY reason I decided to join. I signed up for my insurance fitness program, and presented the information to the Y. That, in and of itself, was a nightmare. I won’t go into that in this review, though, since I joined at the Christown YMCA, and it wouldn’t be fair to blame the downtown location for their issues.
Back to my review of the downtown location. When I first started coming regularly, their water machine was broken. Two weeks later, it was still out of order, and I have no idea how long it was not functioning before I joined.
I generally take group exercise classes at the gym, and this location offers a decent variety. Which brings me to my next issue — the instructors. The ones I’ve had are generally OK, though I don’t think the kickboxing class is nearly the great workout that everyone seems to think.
However, I will say that on one memorable occasion when I arrived to take a Spin class, I asked the instructor (politely) if we could please turn on the fans in the cycle room since it is tiny, has no air flow, and gets HOT as Hades. He replied, «I don’t use fans in my class.» Wow. I have never experienced such rudeness/​arrogance from a class instructor anywhere previously or since.
I really love supporting YMCAs and helping the community, but I don’t think I could justify the cost of this one in exchange for the facilities & service.

The gym is fairly clean, however it is pretty small and they didn’t really have a large range of exercise equipment plus they only had one mat to stretch out on.

The Downtown YMCA appears to be well into some sort of shame-​cycle. I’ve been a member for 20 years. I’m updating but not improving this review, which will stay at one star.
The Y has been in the news lately for announcing the closure of the South Phoenix Y due to lack of funding. They have also been doing a fund drive. However, I cannot support this agency unless I am assured that it supports me and other dues-​paying members. I suspect the funds shortfall is due to a large number of people leaving the Y for other, more customer-​focused and hospitable workout spaces.
This Y distinguishes itself by having management that is arrogantly inaccessible to membership. They refuse to take phone calls or address legitimate complaints. I will enumerate some of the problems, which, if corrected, might actually encourage people to support the YMCA.
**As many feared, the «collaboration» between the Y and ASU has led to a «two-​gyms» policy, with separate facilities, pools, and even separate entrances for ASU students and everybody else. This is contrary to what everybody was told would be the case. An opportunity for community was lost here, and no doubt many long-​term Y members felt they got the shaft, especially the urban singles who were this location’s bread-​and-​butter.
**There are no towels in the evenings after about 6:30 pm. This is a repeated problem. Waiting 90 minutes and returning doesn’t help — there are still no towels. It seems that as soon as the towels are gone at dinnertime, there are no more served the rest of the night until closing.
**If something goes wrong with your membership or you want to make a change, heaven help you. I spent over 10 hours and umpteen phone calls, faxes and visits because the Target fiasco caused my credit card to be canceled. I had a YMCA employee saying I was a deadbeat and threatening me with membership cancellation and having to pay «reinstatement» fees because of a misfortune out of my control.
I was repeatedly blamed for problems that could only have been caused by Y employees and Y procedures (like the time they lost my membership change form, then claimed I never gave them one, even though they managed somehow to capture part of the changes in their computer system.) Please lay off the collection-​agent tactics — you are alienating your customers, whom I know are fleeing to other gyms.
**Men are bringing their young children, including girls, as young as 2, into the men’s locker room and showers, dressing and bathing them naked in the presence of other naked adult men. This has caused consternation among the guys on a couple occasions that I’ve witnessed. There seems to be a lack of reasonable standards in play, and no enforcement.
**In the evenings, the swimming pool has become a no-man’s land of children swinging from the ropes, diving into lap lanes while people are swimming laps, and adults lolling in the pool (sometimes in the lap lanes) while chatting with the lifeguard who is paying absolutely no attention to what’s going on with the swimmers. If you are lap swimming, expect to be kicked and rammed into repeatedly. If you mention to the lifeguard what the problem is, he will reply «What happened? I didn’t see anything-​» which is exactly what you don’t want to hear from your lifeguard when you report a problem in the pool.

Nice, new equipment. Seemingly newer facility. Nice people. I’ll be working out there any time I’m in Phoenix.

After 6 years as a member, my membership expired a couple of months ago and no one noticed at the Y. I guess that’s ok, as the number of classes convenient to me keeps shrinking, the number of machines decreased, and the amount of space taken up for personal training/​TRX machines makes the rest of the exercise rooms croweded. The gym downstairs is crowded and messy. I feel sad about this; this was «my Y» for years.
I am going to look into the other fitness centers in downtown. I also feel sad as I love to support the Y. But this particular one is not up to standard. I hope this gets read, unlike the suggestions I put into the suggestion box over the last year. Mmmm… maybe the Y doesn’t want me anymore.

Love me some Y action! The downtown Y has everything you could ever possibly want in a gym: tons of cardio machines, a separate weight room, a pool, the «trendy» fitness equipment (like TRX and heavy ropes), personal trainers, lots of classes, cold/​hot filtered water, even a café. They could use a couple more stair-​masters though. ;)
Bonus: The staff here are super cute. Especially Vince. ;)

Non pretentious place and not overly crowded for this location which I love since I knock out my work out for the day during my lunch. prices are reasonable and lockers are only $ 7 a month if you need one. Lots of equipment, machines and classes to choose from. Oh, and towels are complimentary also.
I like the foam bath wash in the showers also :)

I’ve been a member of this YMCA since I was 8yrs old. Back in the day, a light blue conversion van would pull up to the neighborhood stop where a group of me and my friends were waiting eagerly to be collected and it would bus us to the downtown Y. You see back then we didn’t know we were poor and we certainly didn’t know we were part of a program to keep at-​risk kids off the streets and out of gangs. We just knew we would get a free breakfast, free lunch, possibly a nap on a cool mat and a full day of Foosball, bumberball, checkers, indoor volleyball and god’s eye craft time. Those sure were some fun times!
Fast forward thirty years and I am still a member, this time a paying member. Not much has changed about the Y. They still have programs for the kinds, the elderly, the homeless and they have a great work out facility with some awesome group exercise programs.
I’ve been taking Marco’s cardio kickboxing class for a couple of years and he is a great instructor. I could barely make it through half his class when I first started but I stuck with it and picked up some great shadow boxing moves and I now have endurance to sustain for a full hour of swinging, kicking and bending. I think He’s kind of a rock star but I won’t tell him that. Most recently I’ve taken up Zumba and I have to admit, I made fun of it at first. From the outside looking in, it looks silly, however, I gave it a try for two weeks and I am hooked. It’s been two months now and I’ve dropped eight extra pounds by adding Zumba to my cardio workout. Yes people, I am hip-​hopping, samba-​ing, mambo cha cha-​ing my way to fit and I don’t care how silly it looks. I feel great! I’ve got my eye on an early morning yoga class, that trial period starts next week.
With all my time in the gym and in group exercise classes I guess the overall at-​risk program has proven successful. It’s keeping me out of the bars (at least on weeknights) and off the streets. Yay-​Y!

The YMCA downtown is in the heart of Phoenix. It is a pretty massive facility with 3 stories and you kind of find yourself in a maze to find the basketball court, downstairs weight room, outdoor track… The place is always clean and there is plenty of cardio and weight machines so you don’t usually have to wait.
The staff is pretty friendly, I would say they don’t go out of their way to make you feel welcome, but they do smile and greet you upon arrival.
My issue with this place is the childcare, I have actually complained that the staff is not regular and seems to just be teenagers that also double as lifeguards, sometimes in a YMCA shirt, sometimes not. I would say since I complained I have seen a much more efficient check in system and more consistent volunteers. I do appreciate they have a glass wall that looks into the gym so you can also keep an eye on you little ones. They have improved, but should take notes from the Christown YMCA as their child watch is still leaps above the downtown one.
Overall a good gym for downtown phx and the large parking lot is also a huge bonus since free parking downtown is hard to come by!

ASU students get free membership at the Y… challah! just had to because i’m jewish. and don’t in any way support christianity, but am more than willing to indulge in a free membership to their gym on ASU’s dime…
the gym is your typical gym. nothing special. they have a nice amount of equipment and they keep the place clean. the staff is really friendly. they have a coffee/​snack bar up front which i’ve never tried. i’ve never done any of their classes either, or used anything besides the gym equipment. but i looked around the place, they have a pool, handball courts, basketball court, and a track that goes outside and then comes back in which is pretty dope.
on my self guided tour i somehow ended up in the apartment area where they house all of the homeless people. kind of scary, and really creepy. but they don’t work out in the gym. it’s mostly a bunch of asu kids and downtowners. nobody is staring you down cuz you’re unfit or you’re not lifting enough. i like that.
so if you don’t mind your occasional random bum pokin at you for change for booze, check out the y.

I’ve never been much of a gym rat, so take this review with a dose of salt (which, along with sugar, is the only thing that motivates me to work out in the first place). I love food and drink, so exercising has really become my golden ticket to my personal Wonka factory, where I can consume as I please but still stay relatively trim.
And when I first started really working out a few years ago, I quickly realized that the only way for me to be successful was to accept one of my other personal flaws (outside of gluttony): impatience. I can barely go a few minutes at a desk without wanting to do something or talk to someone, so expecting myself to diligently pound a treadmill for an hour at a time is a sure guarantee of failure. That’s why I started to do kickboxing at Lee’s Martial Arts in Laveen (see my review). The diversity of exercises, the pumping music and motivation of an instructor made it easy to stay engaged for the full hour required to really burn calories and get in shape.
Given that, when we moved to Central Phoenix a few months ago, I wanted to find a new workout home where classes were a priority – and I didn’t have to pay a fortune to get that in addition to basic gym privileges. With that as my criteria, the Y has been more than satisfactory. The cost (only $ 70 per month for two adults) is really reasonable, the instructors are motivating and seem genuinely happy to be teaching, the free weight room has tons of good equipment for any extra toning I want to do, the locker rooms are clean and the staff is all friendly and helpful. Plus, I can continue to do kickboxing with Marco (great instructor) every Monday and Wednesday at 5:30. I also really like that the facility is housed in an old building. In a city of strip malls and new construction, God knows we could use a little character.
Of course, the Y has downsides (bad parking as others have mentioned, awkward layout, less-​than-​high-​end showering facilities and sub-​par food choices), but it’s well worth the money, and my waistline, wallet and attention span are all the better since joining.

4 – 5 stars for the pool, staff. 1 – 2 stars for the stoopid layout and hell/​sauna-​like conditions of the cardio equipment room.
The good:
Pool is nice, the staff and instructors I’ve encountered are super. Friends rave about the instuctors of their classes.
The bad:
PLEASE bring in two BIG fans into the cardio equipment room. That room is like asking for flu and tuberculosis.
Anyway, see you at Christown.

So much crazy stuff happens here, I can’t even explain it. The locker room is a cloud of Old Spice musk, and whenever little kids are running around, it’s bare-​ass naked mayhem.
They revamped the main gym and the locker rooms a while back, and the equipment is really great. The machines are maintained well, and even when it’s packed there’s not much of a wait. I’m not here to focus on that.
The best part is the basement, chock full of all the old equipment. The legit lifters gather down here, and it’s just like you’d imagine — meatheaded, sweaty and lots of crashing steel. The word «bitch» is shouted so often (not as in «son of a bitch, I can’t believe I got through that set of chest presses;» more like, «don’t be a little bitch, finish your set») that you’re in the majority if you don’t say it more than once per set.
The lobby café is truly great, but severely underutilized. I rarely see anyone hanging out there, and I’ve never seen the attendant making any drinks or serving any food. The best time to visit is when they’re giving away free fruit or granola bars — all the starving ASU kids and bums from the park flood in here like they’re giving away gold.