The fitness club industry is giving Metro Detroit a workout at a time when some are resolving to shape up in the new year.
With chains such as Planet Fitness, Anytime Fitness, Fitness 19, LA Fitness, Powerhouse Gym and others firmly entrenched and expanding, Michigan is getting an even bigger slice of the $22 billion industry as additional chains and concepts are opening up shop here.
The biggest splash comes from New Jersey-based Retro Fitness. It recently opened its first Michigan gym in Pontiac, at Telegraph and Huron Street. The Pontiac site is the first of 25-30 locations planned for the Detroit area within the next three to five years.
For $19.99 a month, members get top-of-the-line strength and cardio machines, a theater room, tanning, a juice bar and day care.
Life Time Fitness’ “diamond” club, meanwhile, opens next summer in Bloomfield Township, under the name Life Time Athletic. While the Minnesota-based chain already has six clubs in the state, this upscale resort concept with a spa is the first in Michigan and only the chain’s 15th such high-end center.
The two offerings plop Michigan right into the fitness industry’s biggest trend, the so-called “consumer hour-glass,” when customers gravitate toward the higher and lower ends of the market.
“At the high end, spa and resort facilities are flourishing, along with experiential niche models, such as cycling and mind/body studios,” industry consultant Bryan O’Rourke of Integerus noted in the annual report of the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association. “At the budget end, operations with business models like that of Planet Fitness are expanding. Many clubs in the middle are trying to be everything to everyone, but they’re at the greatest risk.”
Rudy Abramov, owner of the 15,000-square-foot Pontiac Retro Fitness franchise and a real estate developer based in New York, believes he’s in the right end of that consumer hour-glass, as Michigan’s bruised economy still stings many of its residents.
“It’s a great value,” he said. “I stumbled on a Retro Fitness in New York and I loved the look of it. I was shocked at all the amenities, so as a businessman, I checked into it and knew it was a good business model.”
Since he already owned the Tel-Huron Shopping Center, his only Michigan property, Abramov thought it was time to introduce the concept here.
He signed a three-location contract with Retro. He’s still hunting for the properties of his two other planned Michigan Retro franchises.
“Michigan and the entire Midwest has been on our radar screen,” said Eric Casaburi, chief executive of Retro Fitness. “Timing is everything in life and we met Rudy at the right time.”
His interest in Metro Detroit was piqued by demographics, not Michigan’s ranking as the fifth fattest state in 2012 as declared by Trust for American Health.
“Those polls are so obnoxious, aren’t they?” Casaburi said. “We want to improve the healthy statistic of the state, and I believe we could be impactful there, but there are lots of reasons people are not exercising. One of them is proximity and the other is affordability. If we can put locations that they can get to the gym conveniently and let it be affordable and they have a great experience when they are here, then they’ll develop the habit.”
Trickle-down trend
Candace Worthington, 30, a mother of three from Pontiac, is ready to develop that habit. She’s been searching for a gym for a few months. When she spotted the Retro Fitness sign going up, she researched the company online.
“I read these positive reviews online, saw what they offered and because it’s within walking distance, I waited for open enrollment. I was the fourth person to sign up,” she said.
Retro Fitness is the second chain to open in Pontiac within a year. Last December, Anytime Fitness, the Minnesota-based 24-hour gym, debuted in downtown’s former Sears department store building. At 10,000 square feet, it’s double the size of a typical Anytime location, said fitness director Robin Jones, and costs $29 a month.
“There is room for everybody,” Jones said. “We all have the same bottom line that we want to provide the opportunity to get clients healthy and fit, and Pontiac went underserved for so long.”
Anytime Fitness also is opening downtown Detroit’s first 24-hour fitness center inside the Security Trust Lofts at Griswold and Lafayette on Jan. 13.
Jones believes more locals are flocking to fitness clubs because of the state’s depressed economy and job uncertainty.
“A lot of things you don’t have control over, so people are turning to things they can control, like their health and wellness,” she said. She also believes first lady Michelle Obama’s emphasis on healthy living is part of the fitness boom.
Kenneth Dalto, a Bingham Farms-based retail analyst, agrees.
“This emphasis on sugar, obesity, the size of our drinks, the meals at our schools is a five- to six-year trend and it’s trickling down from places like Washington, D.C. and New York with Michael Bloomberg,” he said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, four out of five U.S. adults do not meet guidelines for healthy physical activity.
“Now that we have Obamacare and the insurance companies are raising rates for unhealthy habits like smoking or being overweight, we’re seeing this new emphasis on being healthy,” Dalto added.
Strong health clubs
U.S. revenues: $21.8 billion
Number of U.S. health clubs in 2012: 30,500 (includes YMCAs and community centers)
Number of Michigan clubs: 1,053
Total health club members: 50.2 million
Sources: International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association
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