A walk through Universal Athletic Club in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, will quickly tell a person this is no ordinary fitness club. There is an attention-to-service and sustainability that owner Rick Casselbury takes very seriously. Whether it’s installing the newest fitness equipment or software innovations, scheduling at the salon and spa, staffing the child fitness center or setting up the pickleball courts, Casselbury ensures the club is running optimally to give his members a premiere experience.
When it came to a recent facility improvement project, Casselbury’s approach was no different. He partnered with Ecore International through its new TRUcircularity Program, to resurface the weight and cardio area of the club with dynamic, recycled rubber and high-performance flooring. The program aims to repurpose end-of-life rubber products, such as tires, into high-performance flooring solutions, thereby reducing waste and minimizing environmental impact.
Casselbury’s lifelong passion for fitness led him to buy Universal 30 years ago when it was only a tennis and racquetball club. He knew that to compete and keep his members engaged, he needed to stay on the cutting edge. Now, the state-of-the art, multi-purpose club features tracks, four swimming pools, five fitness rooms, studios, a full spa, a salon, basketball courts and more.
“Our industry is changing all the time. If you’re not staying up with it, you’re falling behind,” says Casselbury, who adds he’s always looking for the latest innovations and tools to stay current and be a leader in the highly competitive fitness business.
“The key is to upgrade with a passion and a purpose, and one of those is being positive stewards to the environment,” says Casselbury.
In fact, Casselbury and his team have installed over 1,300 solar panels, variable speed pool pumps and LED lighting throughout the expansive campus.
“We want to set a good example by taking care of the environment, not only for my kids, but for everybody here,” says Casselbury. “And we have a lot of members who like the fact that they’re in a place that gives back.”
Ecore and the TRUcircularity program fit with these ideals. When faced with needing a new floor in his weight/cardio area, Casselbury turned to Ecore. Casselbury’s products of choice for the nearly 11,000 square foot resurfacing project were Ecore’s FlexTurf Motivate in the color black and Basic Fit interlocking tiles in Buff Blue with an 8mm Vulcanized Composition Rubber (VCR) layer. Other areas of the club feature additional recycled flooring products from Ecore as well.
TRUcircularity took the years-long partnership with Universal to the next level. For four decades, Ecore has been well-known in the flooring industry for recycling old tires and rubber floors and upcycling those materials into new high-performance flooring, diverting more than 300 million pounds annually from landfills.
TRUcircularity takes this further by engaging customers to become an active participant in the recycling process through three simple steps:
Customer removes existing rubber flooring and places in Ecore recycling bins.
Ecore takes product to one of its U.S. based facilities and recycles into new surfacing.
Customer receives and installs new, high-performance recycled Ecore flooring, completing the circularity loop.
“This program is ideal for customers like Rick Casselbury who value the remarkable and renewable properties of rubber, want to keep it out of landfills and see it transformed into high-performance surfaces that help people live healthier, safer and stronger lives,” says Art Dodge, CEO of Ecore.
Casselbury agrees and adds how simple the whole process was.
“When they delivered the new rubber for the floor, they dropped off big bins for us to put the old rubber in,” says Casselbury. “When we were done, we just wheeled it out to the parking lot, and they picked it up. The fact that they were able to do this from an owner standpoint was efficient and easy.”
When Casselbury was looking for flooring for Universal’s new project, he also searched for products that deliver benefits such as durability, ergonomics and noise reduction. Ecore once again fit the bill. The challenge during the project was how to complete the installation during business hours while keeping the gym open and available to members. Installers went row by row, removing the old product and installing the new, moving equipment as they went along.
“It’s amazing when members see you making improvements,” says Casselbury. “No matter if equipment is out of place, they jump in when they can with no complaints!”
“We have a lot of weight equipment in here, and the durability and resilience of Ecore’s products is impressive,” says Casselbury. “A lot of equipment gets dropped on the floor, from dumbbells to plates to bars. As far as sound, it doesn’t echo through. It doesn’t damage my equipment. The floor holds up very, very well.”
Every day Universal Athletic Club members see Casselbury and his team walking the floor, talking to other members, moving equipment, cleaning and taking an active role in optimizing their experience, down to the floor they work out on. Casselbury depends on all of his partners, including Ecore, to follow that path by being honest, trustworthy and vested in his business’ success.
