Les Mills Auckland City: Long-awaited new pool and mega sauna unveiled

He regards it as part of his legacy to build it.

Phillip Mills says it’s his legacy to build the new inner-city Auckland pool. Photo / Anna Heath

No swimming pool resource consent has yet been sought but he forecasts building to start in 2027 or 2028.

Preparatory works have been underway for a number of months next door in a $3 million related job.

Les Mills Auckland City plans a big expansion with a pool on the site to the right. Photo / Anna Heath.

The 9000 members of New Zealand’s biggest private gym will get that pool, separate saunas for men and women and a cold plunge pool.

Mills, with Les Mills Property CEO Stephanie Campbell, jointly announced the upgrades to Les Mills Auckland City, 186 Victoria St West, and a neighbouring site, which the business has owned for about a decade.

The empty site at 190 Victoria St West is here the new pool will be built. Photo / Anna Heath

The 25m pool is to be built as the top of a new building beside the existing black heritage gym between Victoria St and Wellesley St in the city’s western precinct, Mills and Campbell said.

Cook Brothers Construction is doing the upgrades of the changing rooms, toilets and showers within the old black building.

That work has been underway for some months in preparation for the wider pool project.

The multi-level Les Mills Auckland City carpark on Wellesley St beside the company’s main city gym fronting Victoria St West. Photo / Google Streetview

Existing upgrades are taking place in the old changing areas and boiler room.

Space is being repurposed for what Mills said would be New Zealand’s biggest sauna: a women’s room for 28 users and a separate 24-man sauna.

The pool is to be built beside those facilities on a vacant lot that will feature an outdoor landscaped courtyard area and other pools, for which it is yet to be decided whether they will be hot or cold.

Plans for the new pool at Les Mills Auckland City between Victoria St West and Wellesley St. Photo / Les Mills

A large co-shared cold plunge will be beside the main six-lane pool.

Les Mills Property owns the vacant 190 Victoria St West, which runs through to Wellesley St.

Auckland Council values the 1490sq m site at $9m, whereas the main gym building next door at 186 Victoria St West is valued at $54m.

The new Les Mills Auckland City pool is set to have six lanes. Photo / Les Mills

The main gym site is more than half a hectare at 5808sq m, with a half-hectare floor area on the land.

Mills said 190 Victoria St West was initially used as the equipment laydown yard for Leighs Construction to build the new carparking building.

The property at 190 Victoria St West is now being used as the site office for delivery of equipment and to gain access to the back of the heritage building to build the sauna and renovate the bathrooms.

Stephanie Campbell and Phillip Mills at the site for the new pool at Les Mills Auckland City. Photo / Anna Heath

Campbell said the new cold plunge was being built inside.

“We are still to resolve the make-up of smaller pools outside, cold plunge and/or hot pool,” she said.

The Taranaki St gym of Les Mills in Wellington would get two new saunas and two smaller cold plunge pools.

Mills said many of the 12 Les Mills gyms nationally had been upgraded.

Upgrade work is now happening inside the old black heritage building. Photo / Anna Heath

“It’s a major renovation for us,” Mills said of the Victoria St West works.

“It’s part of a renovation since Covid throughout the country. We’re renovating all the gyms, modernising them, building back better, building them for the new generation for Gen Z and the upcoming Gen A.”

Les Mills, who founded the gym chain. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

Mills, aged 71, has a son Les jnr and talked fondly of his father, Les Mills snr: “He’s ninety-one-and-a-half. He’s good, sharp as a tack, argues about what I should be doing with the business.”

Campbell said on average, people attended Les Mills gyms twice a week.

“We have fewer members but people are attending more,” she said of Les Mills Auckland City, which had 10,000 members pre-Covid.

A plunge pool being built within part of the existing Les Mills Auckland City building. Photo / Anna Heath

About 100,000 people visit the 12 Les Mills nationally weekly, Campbell said.

The pool, sauna and plunge pools were aimed at people wanting rest days from gym work.

“We do fitness so well, but now it’s about recovery, backing rest days and looking after your whole wellbeing. This is essentially our recovery products, for people to come to on a rest day.”

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 26 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.

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