I used to sweat at the King West Club when I worked in the Financial District. Located at the corner of King and Duncan, the gym finds its membership base among the nearby corporate types and the CBCers who toil away across the street. For a basement space, it's a surprisingly good place to work out. The setup is all brick and beam and it's filled with top of the line machines, weights and cardio equipment.

The King West Club is divided into three main rooms. The largest of the three houses treadmills, bikes, step and other cardio equipment. Each has good sight-lines on the cable TV's which tend to feature anything but the CBC - usually sports highlights or some trashy entertainment news program. A range of tightly packed weight machines rest nearby.

A second room is filled with a good range of free weights, some more weight machines and a bit of vacant floor space to get some stretching in. There's plenty of mirrors, exercise balls and a water fountain to compete for attention. It's also a good vantage point to check out the classes in the exercise studio next door.

Rates and Initiation Fee

The club offers two membership options - month to month ($75 a month) or an annual membership which costs $55 a month. Either way, there are no initiation fees and all classes offered are included in the price.

Towels, Lockers and Showers

Small, clean towels are available for a monthly fee or for a $1 payment per work out. Personally, for $55 to $75 I'd expect towel service to be included so I look at this as an additional base monthly fee which essentially pushes up their rates another $15 or so. The good news is that the showers here are some of the best I've seen in the city. There are more private showers than they need and all are modern and equipped with nice smelling liquid body wash. Lockers are new-ish but could be bigger. Day use is free but overnight lockers run $20 a month.

Personal Training, Yoga and Spin

Personal training is offered. There are a number of different packages to choose from at various price points. Spinning bikes are in the cardio area and can be used whenever or during one of the classes which take place Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Hatha Yoga is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at 5:30pm.

Food and Juice

There's a fridge with some basic re-fueling options like water and Guru energy drinks. It would be nice to have some fresh juices and shakes but there's probably not enough space to set something like this up.

Worth Mentioning

For some reason there aren't any early morning classes. I guess CBCers don't get up that early. Other classes offered include Pilates, Ab Attack, Pump it Up, Flex it Up, Cardio Fusion, Boot Camp and Punch Boxing Conditioning. Both locker rooms also have a sauna and the women's locker room has an individual three piece private bathroom.

Days and Hours of Operation

At the time of this post the gym is open Monday to Friday, 6:00am - 9pm; Saturday and Sundays from 9am - 5pm. It's always best to check the web site for the most up to date info.