THUNDER BAY - After being forced to close its doors more than a year ago, the Underground Gym is ready to move into its new home in the downtown south core.
“I’m very excited,” said Underground Gym founder Peter Panetta. “We already had some Underground teens come here. They are just ecstatic. They can’t wait for this to open.”
The new building located on Victoria Avenue East has two floors, each with approximately 5,000 square feet of space and several rooms.
Panetta said the location is ideal, being only one kilometre away from the past location on Simpson Street.
“We are a block away from the bus terminal, which is nice,” Panetta added. “For those who I can’t pick up, they can access it through the buses from anywhere in Thunder Bay.”
Panetta made the difficult decision last November to close the previous location after a water pipe burst and other water damage from a fire in a neighbouring structure.
For months, Panetta looked to find a new location and when the Victoria Avenue building became available, the community stepped up and donated the $90,000 needed to secure the new space.
More money has been donated to help purchase new equipment after much of the past equipment was stolen, as well as a $20,000 donation from Musselwhite mine to install a new kitchen.
“The response is unreal. It’s almost surreal,” Panetta said. “I almost feel like I won the lottery for the Underground. It just keeps coming and people just keep coming. There’s a huge amount of support and rightfully so.
“These children that I work with, they feel lost. They feel like nobody cares about them. Well a lot of people do care about them and they are finding that out and that is really awesome.”
Panetta added that after posting about the new location on social media, he’s already received responses from professional electricians and plumbers willing to come in and help bring the space up to code.
“I want to make sure before I open that everything is up to building code and operational to the point where we don’t have any issues,” he said.
The hope is to have kids back in the gym before Christmas, but Panetta said he will work with the Thunder Bay District Health Unit regarding any restrictions around COVID-19.
The new space will duplicate the programming that was available at the Simpson Street location, including a youth centre, boxing ring, gym area, wrestling, a kitchen, tutoring, music, and art.
“It’s built around a community,” Panetta said. “I don’t want to pay anyone to come in and do that, I want them to come in out of the goodness of their heart and help the children.”
The Underground Gym has become a very important space for youth in the community who may not otherwise have access to these kinds of programs.
Panetta said on average they would see between 30 and 40 kids a day, with some days as many as 100 kids coming to the gym.
That number is expected to grow, Panetta said, and he hopes it could lead to similar locations opening up throughout the city.
“I do expect there are going to be a lot more kids here and that’s okay,” he said. “Ideally it would be nice to see these kinds of facilities all over the city, in vulnerable areas of the city, so kids within walking distance can access these kinds of places. It would be nice to see, but we have to start with one.”
