Fitness influencer opens Resilience Performance Lab in Johnston Square

Resilience Performance Lab opened in a renovated warehouse at 408 E. Eager St. in Johnston Square, adding a 5,000-square-foot gym to one of Baltimore’s most closely watched redevelopment corridors. The move puts Justin Inman’s fitness business into a building that had been listed as shell-condition space ready for buildout, in a HUBZone and Enterprise Zone.

Inman opened the gym on June 13 after moving it from White Marsh, where he had operated for five years at 11600 Crossroads Circle. He said the lease there was up and that he wanted to be closer to his client base. At the time of the move, Inman said the gym had about 80 clients.

Known on social media as “Dr. Baltimore,” Inman also works as a strength coach at a local private high school. His relocation gives Johnston Square another commercial tenant at a time when the neighborhood has been absorbing more residents and services alongside its housing rebuild.

That rebuild has been shaped by city plans that go well beyond one storefront. Baltimore approved a Land Disposition Agreement in October 2019 tied to a master plan to convert more than 700 blighted and abandoned properties into housing and green space. In 2022, the city and partners launched the next phase of that effort with 36 more abandoned properties, including razing 14 blighted buildings on the 400 block of East Biddle Street and the 1200 block of Brentwood Street to make way for a new mixed-use, multi-family building.

ReBUILD Metro says its Johnston Square pipeline includes almost 300 homes and a state-of-the-art community park. A 2023 park plan called for a 3.5-acre Greenmount Park with a playing field, greenway, playground and other community spaces. Together, those projects have brought hundreds of new housing units and other amenities into the area in recent years.

The gym’s arrival fits Baltimore’s broader pattern of turning underused industrial buildings into new commercial space. The question for Johnston Square is how much the new warehouse tenant adds beyond a fresh address: whether it brings more foot traffic, spending and neighborhood activity, or whether it mainly serves as a brand-forward move by a fitness influencer with an already established following.