The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers

The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers is one of the premier athletic facilities on the East Coast, sitting confidently on the Hudson River over looking Hoboken, N.J., on the West Side of Manhattan. The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers is one of the greatest aspects of New York City, and according to Yelp.com, it is one of the best reasons to travel, or live in Chelsea, Manhattan.

Chelsea Piers has a vast history prior to it becoming an entertainment district for Chelsea Manhattan. Chelsea Piers began as a passenger ship terminal in the early 1900s – it was the destination of the RMS Titanic and the launching location of the RMS Lusitania, the ship that was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-20 on May 7, 1915, and subsequently brought America into World War I.

Today, Chelsea Piers has manifested itself into a Sports and Entertainment Complex comprised of several different components – BLUESTREAK Sports Training, the Field House, Golf Club, Sky Rink, Sports Center Health Club, the Spa, Pier Sixty & Lighthouse and 300 New York Bowling.

Greta Wagner has been with Chelsea Piers in several different capacities for almost 16 years, and although she is modest, she has grown to be a tremendous leader of her team and an expert in managing construction projects. It was continuing construction of the Sports Center at Chelsea Piers that pushed her into her role as general manager of the club.
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Wagner, 44, came from a long line of professional dancers and was continually taught the importance of good health. “Fitness has always been important to me and to my family,” she said. “I was raised by my grandmother who always said every time you’re active it’s like depositing money into your health bank.”

Once Wagner began to see there was more to the world than dance, she quickly fell into other forms of exercise. “I started teaching aerobics, step and getting really involved beyond the dance world,” she said. “It stuck. I really enjoyed it and that’s how I got started. Then, it just became a very natural progression for me into management and becoming immersed in every aspect of the club environment.”

Wagner said she was really young when she began teaching aerobics, around 18 or 19 years old. She had become involved with a kids weight loss camp where she helped work with younger kids to lose weight and get fit. “I think from my dance background – I used to teach dance classes – so instruction was very natural for me,” she explained. Wagner was an exceptional dancer who studied at the California School of Performing Arts. However, it was Group X classes that allowed her to segue into the fitness world.

Wagner eventually found herself moving away from Group X and working for corporate fitness facilities in Manhattan with Mass Mutual. The management experience she had at the corporate facilities helped her become brave enough to write the CEO of Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex. “I came to visit Chelsea Piers one day with my personal trainer and it was such a spectacular facility. I wanted to be a part of the place in any capacity, as a consultant or anything. I wrote the CEO a letter and said, big or small, or whatever, I think you have hit the nail on the head, and I think you’ve got something over there and I want to be a part of it. Then it kind of rolled from there.”

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According to Wagner, there isn’t another fitness facility like Chelsea Piers. “I love it,” she said. “It’s the old cliché that it’s family, but it is family. There are three principals, Roland W. Betts, Tom A. Bernstein and David Tewksbury.” In 1983, Betts and Bernstein started Silver Screen Management Inc., which financed and produced such films as Pretty Woman, The Rocketeer and Three Men and a Baby.

“They are such great mentors and such great people, and they constantly challenge people and give people the opportunity to grow,” Wagner said of the three principals. “There isn’t anything about the company I don’t absolutely adore. We are surrounded by the top notch on every level, from Olympic coaches to professional athletes, to our staff comprised of the best of the best. I thrive in that environment, and I like to surround myself with people that really know what they are doing.”

When Wagner first came onto the staff at Chelsea Piers, she was the assistant general manager under Harvey Spevak, who went on to become the CEO of Equinox Fitness Clubs. “After about two and half years, I became the general manager of our golf club, and I spent about 12 years there,” Wagner said. “About two years ago I came back to have oversight of a massive renovation we were doing with the club. That is something that I love, and the owners know I love construction.”

With construction projects Wagner continually questions how something could be better – looking for improvements in every way. “I came back here as the general manager and oversaw a staff of about 200 people. The thing that has challenged me the most, which has kept things very interesting, is working with one of my colleagues, Keith Champaigne, who has worked with the owners for more than 20 years. We started heading up our HR department and developed our front-line customer service, training programs and mid-level management training programs.”

Wagner said the company had discovered that many of its employees were staying at Chelsea Piers and learning its systems really well. “It’s a big complex with many different businesses and we were having people that were really good on the front line or really good in a specific area and they were growing from within. We were taking these young, talented, smart people and we were working them up to management level and we thought we needed to invest more in our people and train them.”

The development of the HR department and training employees for upper level management has been a 10-year focus of Wagner’s. “I’ve pretty much trained every employee we’ve had at this complex in what our corporate culture is, in what our beliefs are, our philosophy, our how-to approach to deliver that excellent customer service. That’s one of the things I love doing and I believe has the greatest impact on our culture and our company.”

Chelsea Piers insists on promoting from within. The HR strategies that Wagner has developed have given the company an upper hand and security in creating successful future leaders. Not only does the company benefit from great leadership, but also it provides members with familiar, friendly faces over time.

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The best shot at success for a club can be to understand the market, which includes all demographics and lifestyles. Chelsea Piers must understand the small sample demographic that is Chelsea Manhattan, but also as a destination club, they must understand the greater demographic of New York City as a whole.

“It’s challenging,” Wagner said. “There is a lot of competition out there. It is the biggest and one of the best markets to be in. I believe we have positioned ourselves in a way that we’re a destination club, so we have something very unique that no other club can offer.”

As a destination club, Chelsea Piers must be able to offer members a wide variety of amenities to make them come and spend large amounts of time in the complex. Wagner has created an environment that is not only inviting to members, but also gives them an open place to exercise and unwind from the bustling metropolis. She said it’s not uncommon for members to come out to the club and spend whole days enjoying the facility. They even offer weekend memberships that help members that can’t find time to reach the facility during the busy week.

“People come to us and they make us their lifestyle, and they spend more time here than they would typically spend if they were going to their corner gym,” Wagner said. “Our trainers have the ability to work with unique pieces of equipment. Last year we built a monkey bar system, we called our jungle gym. We have an indoor sand volleyball court and our trainers put our people in there and they hook them to a big tire and have them run around in the sand. Most clubs can’t offer those things.”

Chelsea Piers also provides its members with Olympic pools, as well as a beautiful track and standard high-end equipment. Due to their place in the New York market, they are frequently used as a testing site for companies such as Trixter and other new products. Wagner said that trainers put clients on the interactive Trixter bikes for a cardio workout, but will jump on a bike next to their client for a short race. “It’s great to see members racing their trainers with a smile on their face,” said Wagner. “We are able to be really creative, deliver better service and get better results for our clients. I think that’s why people will make the trip. Our neighborhood in Chelsea is booming right now, with the Hudson River Park, which is also used as part of our club. People come in and we’ll start their workout here with their trainer, but it will be a beautiful day and they’ll be like, let’s go take a run on the river, then they come back and they do a little bit more. We’ve got a lot of unique qualities. People walk in our doors and are like, ‘this is an amazing place, I feel good in being in this building and the staff makes me feel good.’”

According to Wagner, the experience at the Sports Center at Chelsea Piers is about value. They provide members with everything they could possibly desire from a health and fitness club. “Our rates are even lower than our competition, depending on the membership you choose,” she explained.

As a top health club in NYC, Chelsea Piers can’t afford to send members mixed messages. They have to be straightforward – they are a destination club, and it may be a hassle for some to reach the location – but, they offer amenities that the typical NYC resident can’t experience anywhere else. “Where else can you go in Manhattan and have a dedicated parking lot downstairs right at your door? We give dramatic discounts on our parking rates for our members to make it convenient for them to get there. We have a dual membership, because we find that a lot of our clients are golfers, so we have a membership that we call our Gold Membership that combines our Golf Club and Sports Center. There are many opportunities for our members to receive that priority pricing and value.”

The value at Chelsea Piers continues year-round with parties and events taking place on a regular basis. As the summer months roll into NYC and everyone gears up for the 4th of July fireworks, Chelsea Piers comes out on top once again for its members. Although the club closes, it allows members to come in and relax on the sundeck that overlooks the Hudson River on the West Side of Manhattan and witness one of the greatest firework shows on Earth.

Over the years Chelsea Piers has transformed its reputation from a shipping dock to a full service entertainment facility with one of the best fitness facilities in the U.S. The name has become synonymous with fitness throughout the region, which has spurred the development of a second Sports Center at Chelsea Piers, but it won’t be at Chelsea Piers. The new location will be in Stamford, Conn. where Wagner says they have members that come to the Chelsea Piers club on weekends and while on business. Registrants began Dec. 1 with the facility opening in the Summer of 2012. -CS

By Tyler Montgomery