A family-run gym hidden underground on Liverpool's Old Hall Street, accessible only through a new plant-based café, is set to open this weekend. Phnx Performance Centre, located in the former Signature Fit Club premises beneath Wild Root, will officially launch on Saturday, November 7.
A personal project built from scratch
Alex McGroarty-Raine, 27, a personal trainer of six years, founded the gym with his partner and co-founder Danielle Burns. The pair handled day-to-day operations and physically built the site themselves, with Alex's brother contributing joinery work.
Alex, originally from Leicester, told the ECHO: "If you're afraid to ask questions, you won't find anything out. I reached out to some local friends that have gyms and you'd be surprised how much they help if you ask for it."
He added: "We did all of this ourselves. Everything you see here is from us. My dad has worked on building sites and we were spending 16 hour days on the weekends just trying to get everything done. We completely ripped this back to bare bones and then built it back up again."
Investing in the perfect space
Alex and Danielle received the keys in March and invested £65,000 into the premises. Alex said: "We don't have any backers or big funders. We really are just real people doing this ourselves because that's what we've always wanted to do."
Due to equipment lead times stretching over a year, groundwork for the gym began in 2024. Alex said: "The lead time for machines was more than a year so we just had to wait before we even got our hands on things."
A focus on personal experience
The gym is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, but Alex aims to avoid the clinical atmosphere of larger rivals. He said: "We're very much about 'this is what you need and you will get everything that you need'. We don't ever want to have sleeper members. We want everyone's experience to be as catered to them as possible."
He added: "We will always be here while you're training so we want people to feel they can strike up a conversation. As much as you're here to use the equipment and train, we want to know who you are and hopefully vice versa. A lot of gyms are for profile but we're not built that way."
Alex said: "We've been so busy I haven't had a moment to stop. I don't think I will. I work seven days a week, so I'll probably look at everything on Christmas Day and Boxing Day when I'm off. The reason I built this place was genuinely because I wasn't happy with any of the others in town. I wanted to fill the gap between a really high end gym and places like JD. I hope everyone can see how much genuine care we've put into the place."
