PHOENIX – Track Club, a very short-lived nightclub in downtown Phoenix, is reopening, not as a club or music venue, but as a gym and fitness center under the same name.
The building on the corner of Central Avenue and Roosevelt Street was home to DeSoto Central Market, a popular indoor food hall, before being sold to new owners in 2019, renovated and reopened as a nightclub in October 2019, four weeks later the nightclub closed.
It has remained empty until now.
Pasquale “Pat” Brocco, known as @PossiblePat on Instagram, whose own weight loss journey was shared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” a few years agoleads efforts to open the fitness and fitness center.
“Fitness literally saved my life,” he told ABC15.
Brocco said he weighed the heaviest over 600 pounds and to lose weight he threw the food away at his house and went to Walmart to have his meals a mile there and back every day, according to an ABC News Article from 2016. That resulted in inclined walks on a treadmill, lifting weights, and changing one’s diet. He’s lost over 300 pounds – and kept it off.
He wants to bring “a new style of fitness” with a “great ambience” to downtown Phoenix. He said he plans to keep some of the LED screens from the track club’s club days, as well as the DJ booth, to potentially showcase DJ sets during evening practice.
That being said, it will have some of the expected features of a large fitness center: exercise machines, free weights, group exercise classes, and one-to-one classes. There will also be an outdoor gym that DeSoto’s patio was in, he said.
Part of the demolition of the interior has already begun and the equipment has been ordered, he said. The aim is to kind of open in mid-March.
There are also discussions about opening a restaurant concept inside, but those plans are still under development, he said.
Brocco teased the announcement on the Track Club’s Instagram account on Monday night and confirmed the announcement on Tuesday. Some comments were happy about the new adventure, while others hoped for the return of the music venue.
