HARFORD COUNTY, Md. — A new space for young athletes to train is helping fill a need for hundreds of families in northern Harford County.

Dubs Sports and Fitness, located at 3269 Dublin Rd., opened in mid-November, and according to its owner, serves about 500 families, seven days a week.

As a parent of young athletes, Brian Andrychowski knew if a chance to buy a sports facility came up, he and his family wouldn’t pass it up.

“We’ve been around youth sports for 20 plus years,” he told WMAR.

In northern Harford County, he said, there aren’t many spaces for youth athletes to train, especially in the wintertime. He recalled driving to the Towson area for his own daughters.

Last April, Andrychowski, who also owns Kingsville Karts, bought the space, which was once a grocery shop. Now, his “Dubs Sports and Fitness” is filling a need for a close-by training facility for sports like lacrosse, soccer, field hockey and more.

“By putting something like this in northern Harford County,” he said, “all the local kids have something local that’s 15, 20 minutes away. We’ve had parents say, ‘thank you for doing this, we only live 20 minutes down the road.'”

Brian Chittum’s ‘Work or Watch Lacrosse’ operates at the facility. He said about 150 of his athletes are training at Dubs.

“To me it means so much,” Chittum said, “and I only go off the feedback I get from the parents. The text messages and the emails I received from this past Saturday when the middle school league started, they were just in awe.

“That we have a platform, we have a place that’s lacrosse friendly,” he added.

The building itself was once a long-rooted grocery shop, known as Moody’s Market and Dublin Market. A scrapbook at Dubs pays homage to the building’s history.

“It’s been nothing but great, positive feedback from the families,” Andrychowski said. “The kids, everybody’s excited because, again, it’s wintertime, kids can’t train outdoors obviously with the bad weather we’ve had here recently. And they’re looking for opportunities and this is a great place for folks to come.”