Retrofit WeHo Gym Permanently Closes During COVID After Four Years

Retrofit WeHo Gym becomes the latest West Hollywood business to close on Santa Monica Boulevard during the coronavirus pandemic. Located at 7624 Santa Monica in the east side of WeHo, the fitness training studio known for offering a more luxurious one-on-one personal training experience and a mixture of high intensity interval training (HIIT) group classes, is currently vacant with its front doors boarded up.

Also gone is the adjacent Retrofit Cafe, which offered an array of sports drinks, organic coffee, fresh smoothies and juices and a health conscious menu.

Retrofit has been offering virtual HIIT classes via the Zoom platform during the pandemic to stay afloat and keep their clients fit. The facility then took their workout equipment outdoors and began offering one-on-one personal training sessions as the Los Angeles Department of Public Health lifted restrictions on outdoor workout facilities.

“We believe that movement and fitness is essential,” reads their last Facebook timeline message posted on August 4th. “That’s why we are doing all we can to help you keep up with your health… including taking our gym…OUTDOORS! 🙌🏼🧡 Welcome to our spacious, sanitized, shaded, and fully equipped Retrofit outdoor space. If you’re missing the weight room then give us a call and let us help you get back to it!”

According to a source, movers were seen removing workout equipment from the fitness studio earlier this week.

There is no signage on the building addressing its closure, nor are there any messages stating whether the business has moved or if it is gone for good. According to their website, social media, and Yelp page, the place is open for business while the actual building currently sits gutted. Email and voicemail messages have not yet been returned as of the posting of this piece.

A source who works next door stated that the gym is permanently closed due to the extremely high rent. She said the closure of all gyms during the COVID-19 pandemic did not help them stay open for business either, but her assessment is that it was the high rent that eventually did them in.

Established in 2016, Retrofit WeHo was the brain child of founders Rob McGillivray and Jessie Pavelka who have over thirty years combined experience in the fitness industry, both as competing athletes in their individual sports, and by way of personal training. In 2009 they set out to offer a day program where participants would receive individual physical assessments, body-type specific training guidance, nutritional support and motivational techniques. Seven years later, they proudly provide a facility which promotes the tools of science, support and variety within an upscale functional fitness community.

Four years later, Retrofit WeHo gym becomes another vacant building on Route 66.