Powerhouse West Bloomfield does seem to be the best gym in our area.
It's very clean. They have a pool. Lots of machines in a wide variety of choices including 2 NuSteps. Lots of space. If you've never been inside, it's deceptively small looking from outside the building and hugely spacious inside.
They offer a lot of classes. Way too many tv's. Be prepared for noise and bring your own sound canceling earphones if that's an issue for you. It's a BIG gym.
It has decent accessibility. The few changing rooms offered are BIG and have benches and grab bars which are really helpful if you've got accessibility challenges that make dressing difficult. The pool entrance has ladders, entrance steps, and a seat that can lower you into the pool. The women's only workout room is upstairs, just warning you, and there's no way to get there aside from walking up a flight of stairs, so I haven't seen it.
What I don't like:
The 3-lane pool feels small and most often has 5+ people in it even when I go between noon & 2pm, their slowest time of the day. I'm not sure the lanes are actually normal length or shorter, or maybe I'm just thrown off because the lanes are narrower than other lap pools I've used (I can't normally touch the lane dividers with both hands while swimming elementary backstroke, for example, but I do at this pool) and the pool is shallow - you can touch everywhere. This makes it great for people who can't swim because they can walk. But with all the pool walkers and the narrow lanes, it's hard to really lap swim because lane sharing is extra challenging, and there's nowhere deep enough to tread water.
WEIRD bathrooms! The toilet stalls are made of frosted glass. I'm not sure if they designed that way to match the shower stalls or to discourage people from changing in bathroom stalls, but... there's not as much privacy as any other public bathroom I've ever seen. You can see which stalls are full/empty at a glance and whether the person in the stall is leaning forward to wipe, sitting, or standing. It's also quite a walk to get from the workout area to the bathrooms, which are back by the pool.
They don't list their prices anywhere, and the way they always have some special deal going that's about to end soon just seems like a weird sales ploy. You can't find out the price without giving your info. Even if you go in person and ask, they have this whole song and dance where they list a higher price and cross it off and give you this "special limited time offer." I originally went to signup due to an advertised rate of $25/month for college students with ID, which I saw advertised on Facebook, but was told there was no such rate when I arrived in person. I kind of get the feeling that they pay their sales team on commission based on how high of a rate they can talk the customer into paying each month. Plus there's also a signup fee and an annual fee in addition to the monthly fee. I'm ok with all of that, I just wish they wouldn't deceptively advertise, and that they were more up front with their pricing.
The sales team is uhh... thorough? Excellent at followup? They WILL call and email frequently but they stopped as soon as I asked them to - so be upfront with them! I do wish the guest passes for the higher membership could be used by guests without them scheduling the visit and having to wait for someone from sales to talk to them before and after each visit. Also, the sign in the building says guests should be new one-time visitors, but a salesperson told me over the phone that you can have the same guest come use all 4 guest passes as long as they fill out the paperwork with every visit. Not sure which is accurate, but I felt a little embarrassed to be told one thing and show up and see otherwise. read more