Ivan Black in the retail space at 3rd and Herr streets where he plans to open Next Step Performance this July.
A fitness studio plans to open next month at the corner of 3rd and Herr streets in Midtown, replacing a convenience store that was evicted late last year after a string of citations and complaints from the neighborhood.
Ivan Black, a personal trainer and former college baseball player, hopes to launch the new training studio under the name Next Step Performance in the remodeled space on July 6, with a focus on calisthenics and bodyweight training.
The space will look like a “typical CrossFit studio,” Black said, referring to the popular high-intensity fitness regime, with lots of open space and some minimal equipment like pull-up bars and medicine balls.
Next Step Performance will fill a first-floor, corner commercial space that has sat vacant since the eviction of the T-Mart, a convenience store that repeatedly ran afoul of neighbors and city officials during the two-and-half years it was there.
The store and its owner, Tika Siwakoti, were the subject of several citations, including for selling loose cigarettes and failing a codes inspection.
Midtown Square Action Council, a neighborhood group, was particularly active in pressing for change from the city and the landlord, who finally filed for eviction in mid-October.
“It was an absolute wreck, but there was something charming about it,” Black said of the space. “I had a bat hanging from the ceiling. I took a picture of that.”
Black and his wife moved to Harrisburg two months ago from Washington, D.C., where he taught classes at Reformation Fitness, an area gym. He also launched Ivan Black Fitness, a website for his personal training services.
He said he was getting familiar with Harrisburg and was happy to “hit the ground running.”
“I feel good about the neighborhood, too,” he said, describing the Midtown location as a growing part of the city.
Black said the neighbors’ involvement in the ousting of the tenant before him, which he learned about from the building’s owner, encouraged him.
“That made me feel good, because the sort of business I have, I need the community involved,” he said. “I knew if I did the right thing, I’d be OK.”
