San Francisco-based workout studio The Bar Method is readying to open its first Michigan location in downtown Detroit in March.

Chicago native Christina Carroll co-owns the Detroit franchise location with Amelia Patt Zamir, who is from Bloomfield Hills and was included in Crain’s 2018 Women in real estate special report as principal of Method Development.

Several free classes will be held at the end of February as part of a soft opening, Carroll said.

The new space at 607 Shelby St., Suite 300 isn’t yet open, but The Bar Method has been hosting free community workouts at the Detroit Opera House, and other classes at locations including the Detroit Lululemon and Under Armour stores since August, according to an emailed statement.

The new space is under construction, with Detroit-based Sachse Construction doing build-out and New York-based AnCor as architect and designer, Carroll said in the statement. It will have two studios, men’s and women’s locker rooms with showers, and a coffee and tea bar.

Total investment into the new space was not immediately available.

The duo will employ three part-time teachers at first and anticipate training more and employing sales staff in the future. They hope to open more Michigan locations, but don’t yet have concrete plans to do so, Carroll said.

Pop-up wine bar company Brut Detroit will serve drinks during the grand opening 5:30-8 p.m. March 2, after the first official classes March 1, Carroll said.

The location is in the 607, a nine-story office building a block away from Cobo Center that Detroit-based Basco purchased in 2013, Crain’s reported. It was originally built in 1925 as the U.S. Mortgage Bond Building, and is home to shared workspace SpaceLab Detroit.

The 16-year-old workout studio company has around 114 locations across the U.S., including in Illinois and Indiana.

The Bar Method’s classes follow the barre (or ballet-based) workout approach, with focuses on strength training, joint safety and improving posture and flexibility. The company also runs an online exercise community.