Planet Fitness – Washington – Ivy City

Super clean and cheap, no frills gym. Hard to find any negatives as parking is free for the time being. I suppose the fact that ivy city has little public transport makes it difficult if you dont have a car. But an affordable gym in a city, so glad to see it.

Basic, no frills gym in an area of DC that is undergoing a lot of new development. I think there is a total lack of cheap gyms in DC so it’s good to see this place open up. It’s pretty popular but they’ve got enough equipment that there isn’t ever a wait or anything like that.

***this negative review is based on a PF policy of automatically charging your account with no warning for Annual fees that were not disclosed to members, not the gym or staff.
Justin–
This morning I regretfully canceled my membership at Planet Fitness Ivy City.
I am a member of the Ivy City community, and was excited to hear about you all coming to the neighborhood when the announcement was first made. This morning I saw that I was being charged for the PF annual fee, and decided to visit the club to get some clarification. I completely understand that you all charge the annual fee, but I didn’t get a clear answer as to why I and other members that supported your grand opening and joined are being charged this fee especially when I just joined the club 3 months ago. It is to my understanding that typically an annual fee is charged after 1 year after joining, not after 3 months. That is why they call it an annual fee. I don’t mind paying the fee, but what bothered me even more than the premature charge is that it was automatically taken out of my account with no warning. Every other creditor that I have notifies me before they charge my account, especially if it will be for a different amount then I usually pay monthly. Based on the amount of complaints that I have seen online about this issue, in addition to the calls that I witnessed the staff take in reference to this issue while canceling my membership this morning, I would think that PF would want to at lease update their members about additional funds that will be taken from their accounts. I was told that the staff told me about the fee when I signed up, but I signed up online. I did not know about this fee until I was being charged for it. Most of the residents in Ivy City are on fixed incomes and cannot afford double automatic payments without warning.
I appreciate your attention to this issue. As I said earlier, I regretfully canceled my membership this morning, mainly because I want to be a member of the gym that is in my community, but also because I want to be able to talk positively to my friends colleagues, and neighbors when asked about my experience at PF. At this point that is not something that I can do. Is their anything that you or Pam at the Ivy City gym can do?
Disappointed Resident
Aubrey,

Just joined tonight but I’ve visited a couple of times and overall I’m impressed. Extremely clean — it’s brand new so it should be — and it has a ton of equipment. Free parking and you will probably never have to wait for a stationary bike or treadmill. They also have lockers that don’t require you to bring a padlock, which is cool. Now, if you’re really looking to add serious muscle mass this isn’t your spot. No barbells or squat racks, which is lame — but that’s their gimmick. No meatheads. But as I see it, you don’t have to be a lunkhead to use a squat rack. DC doesn’t have many musclebound types anyway. Anyway, Planet Fitness does have dumbbells up to 60 pounds which is enough for most of us to get some good weight work in. There are also some Smith machines and your typical assortment of plates up to 45 pounds for those of us who like to at least get some semblance of a squat routine and/​or some bench incline reps in. They have a LOT of new, high quality weight machines. All in all, a damn good deal for $ 10 bucks. For $ 20 you can bring a guest an unlimited amount of times and it gets your some water massage tables and chairs and some other fancy ionizer machine and tanning beds. Now, if the rest of Ivy City would hurry up and catch up with some good restaurants and stores, those of us living in the Trinidad/​H Street area would have a good reason to spend more time there. Rooting for this area and Planet Fitness is a fine addition.

I am an existing member of Planet Fitness in Greenbelt — I called to inquire about adding the Ivy City gym to my membership and I was rudely spoken to and eventually hung up on. Funny thing is I called my Greenbelt gym to inquire how to add Ivy City and they walked me through it nicely and mentioned I was the 5^th person to complain about Ivy City. I guess customer service doesn’t matter and apparently they don’t need new members, which is odd because they are a new gym. So sad.

Update: switched over and made this my home gym. It’s a cool little spot. I can get what I need done and enjoy my workout. Everyone seems nice too. No gawking, talking on the cell phone, sitting on machines doing nothing like I’ve experienced at other PF’s. Folk are getting it in. I definitely recommend the black card spa to any black card members. The best around. From the total body to the water massage beds. DC did good with this one. Hope more come. Too many gimmicky gyms in the city that charge mortgages for memberships. Get me in and get me out!
Very nice. First time coming to this location. Not exactly close to me (district heights is closer) but decided to stop past on my way home from work. Glad I did. Gona be adding this location to my weekly workout schedule. I know it’s new but it’s just that nicer than DH. Less space but with more/​better equipment. Not that I watch, but it’s nice to see TV’s that actually work. Biggest plus is the lockers. They have their own locks. With the theft at DH, you would think they might invest. Wait time isn’t too bad. they have a lot of equipment (short wait time). Only minus is because of the pizza Mondays. I think it’s absolutely crazy to bring such food into a gym. So counterproductive. And I hear they do donuts for the Monday morning folks. Smh. Probably why people don’t take this as a serious gym. Yea. it’s cheap but you can get the job done here if u try. But they really should kill the pizza and donuts.