Baltimore-area ballplayers should have a new place to train by year’s end.
NBA forward Rudy Gay’s forthcoming franchise of PickUpUSA, a chain of basketball training centers, is outfitting a space in a business park at 8855 Orchard Tree Lane located off of Joppa Road and Loch Raven Boulevard, behind Mo’s Seafood, Guitar Center and Orchard Automotive in Towson.
The building, formerly home to indoor trampoline park Rockin’ Jump and a Skateland roller-skating rink, is “now under construction,” a PickUpUSA spokesperson said. He said details on how many courts it will have, staff size and more aren’t yet available.
But they’re eyeing November for a “soft opening,” he said. The facility’s Instagram page offers a glimpse at the work in progress and an early offer for a free guest pass.
PickUpUSA gyms offer typical fitness items like weights and cardio equipment, as well as multiple basketball courts, refereed pickup games and group and private training sessions. They also carry specialty gear like shooting guns, which automatically collect and return balls to players, and Vertimax training equipment to work on leg strength and quickness.
The company and Gay, a Baltimore native now entering his 16th NBA season and his third with the Spurs, announced plans to open the gym somewhere in the city this past January. Gay grew up here and played AAU for Cecil-Kirk and high school basketball for Eastern Technical High School in Essex and, for his final two years, at Archbishop Spalding High School in Severn.
PickUpUSA’s founder and president, Jordan Meinster, told Baltimore Fishbowl earlier this year that he was also born in Baltimore and still has family in the area. “It’s a market we’ve been looking at for a long time,” he said.
Meinster’s firm currently has five gyms in Arizona, California, Florida and Texas. The Towson franchise and another planned one in Michigan will be its sixth and seventh.
