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NEWSWIRE
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With new club, ex-Gold's operator aims high |
By John Craig, Editor - 04.03.2008
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PEABODY, Mass. - A longtime Gold's Gym operator who left the chain in 2006 to launch his own clubs has broken ground on a massive, four-story fitness and retail complex north of Boston.
John Grossi, a Gold's franchisee for 25 years, said the 130,000-square-foot structure will be a "high-end lifestyle building" that will house a huge health club as well as a restaurant, therapist offices and clothing stores. A February 2009 opening is planned.
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This will be the fifth Latitude Sports Club outside Boston that Grossi either owns or co-owns. The other four used to be under the Gold's name, but Grossi broke ties with the chain 20 months ago, upgraded his facilities, and tried to expand his reach beyond the muscle-head market.
The move paid off, Grossi said, pointing to his combined 18,000 Latitude members who pay $40-$50 a month. Enrollment is up 15 percent from the Gold's days, he noted.
Like the other Grossi gyms, the new club will bear the imprint of Rudy Fabiano. But at $19 million and nearly twice the size of any other Latitude, Fabiano is creating a few more architectural flourishes.
The top floor will feature an Olympic-size pool and sundeck, while the first three levels will house basketball courts, an indoor running track, plush locker rooms and an enormous selection of strength and cardio pieces and group-ex-classes. Grossi is still trying to decide between soccer fields and tennis courts on the third floor.
At 70 feet in height, the building's glass exterior will be striking, as will a 45-foot climbing wall running through the center of the building, general manager David DeRosa said. Motorists on Interstate 95 will be able to see inside the club.
"This project is a culmination," DeRosa said. "Each time we've built a club, we've built it better than the previous one. From location to design to equipment, it'll be done to the utmost."
Membership dues will range from $70 to $80 a month - on the high end, perhaps, for a health club in a working-class town and along a busy artery best known for schlocky strip malls and a restaurant with plastic cows out front.
But Grossi observed that there are 180,000 residents within a five-mile radius and that his club is near several well-to-do towns nearby have been attracting better stores and businesses to the area.
There's no shortage of health club competition. An LA Fitness opened a few miles away, and Boston Sports Clubs and Planet Fitness have gyms in the area.
"There's room for everybody," Grossi said.
Not even the economy worries him.
"I have a theory that when the economy is bad, people get smarter with their money. They might cut back on the expensive restaurants but they're not going to cut back on their health," he said. "People are always going to work out. It's a necessity now, and baby boomers realize that."
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