Quickly Expanding Fitness Chain Plans 600+ Locations By End Of This Year
Fitness trends come and go, and Club Pilates is coming hard and fast right about now.
Founded in 2007, the company has 380 locations open in 37 states, and expects to nearly double that, to 600-plus sites, by the end of 2018. In South Florida, where the brand already has 10 outposts, nine more will open.
Club Pilates CEO Anthony Geisler started his fitness empire in the early 2000s, when he loved his gym, LA Boxing, so much that he bought it and started franchising. For legal advice, he brought on FBI agent-turned-lawyer Shaun Grove. LA Boxing grew to 81 locations and was sold to UFC Gyms in 2013. Geisler set about repeating the process by acquiring Club Pilates in 2015. Grove joined him as partner and company president. Geisler also has other businesses, which focus on rowing and stretching, under his Xponential Fitness umbrella.
Pilates is notoriously expensive, often costing $25 to $40 for a group class and more for private instruction.
"Typically unlimited Pilates cost $250 to $300 a month, and our pass is $159 for unlimited Pilates, depending on the location," Geisler told the Orange County Register.
Grove told Bisnow there are 420 studios already open across the country, and 800 territories sold to franchisees. All of the locations are franchises, none are corporate.
"Once a franchise partner comes on board, the training is done in-house and our team assists the studio’s development and operations throughout the term of the franchise," Grove said. "We host training for franchise partners, general managers, instructors and master trainers on a monthly basis in our corporate office as well as our regional training centers across the country."
As for the real estate, Grove said Club Pilates' standard studio size is between 1,500 and 2K SF, "and we always seek to be in the best Class-A retail centers."
"We have detailed site selection criteria and our real estate team works very closely with every franchise partner, and their local real estate brokers, across the country to ensure they are supported throughout their journey from site selection to lease signed," Grove said. "We must approve a studio location before we allow the franchisee to move forward with executing a lease."
A Pilates studio can be a less disruptive retail tenant than other exercise studios because it typically does not require loud music, shower facilities or particularly heavy equipment, though there are Reformers, which are like adjustable benches with sliding seats for the exercises.
