The health club tenant is a very hot category throughout the nation. This is especially proving to be the case in the Las Vegas and Henderson markets.
Two of the best examples of this are Village Square Shopping Center and Canyon Lakes Center, located on the northwest and southwest corners of Fort Apache and Sahara in the Summerlin submarket. Just three years ago, neither center had any type of fitness use. In the past 18 months, however, Village Square has leased to Sumits Yoga, a 5160-square-foot hot yoga center, and Orange Theory Fitness, a 2,915-square-foot fitness franchise out of Florida.
Across the street to the east, Canyon Lakes has just signed a lease with Body Heat Pilates and Yoga for 5,332 square feet. It is also working with a martial arts tenant for another space. Both centers report they have interest from larger boot camps, ballet-based workouts and Pilates-type tenants.
This example repeats itself throughout the entire Las Vegas Valley. Planet Fitness, made popular by The Biggest Loser television show, has opened its fifth location, a 24-hour-a-day center with memberships starting at $10 per month and no long-term obligations. At the other end of the spectrum, LifeTime Fitness, a full-service, high-end, publicly traded lifestyle fitness location, will open its second outpost in Henderson. This fitness concept comes equipped with basketball courts, tennis, indoor and outdoor pools, climbing walls, spas, a café, hair salon and personal services for everything fitness related. The entire project contains 171,000 square feet.
LifeTime’s newest location will open this November. The first location, a 210,000-square-foot outpost in Summerlin, opened in May 2011.
Another trend we are seeing is the expansion of health food markets throughout the valley. Trader Joe’s is opening its fifth store at the new 1.4-million-square-foot Downtown Summerlin Center, which is being developed by the Howard Hughes Corporation.
Wild Oats will be coming back into the Las Vegas market and opening a store in November in the Longford Shoppes in the southwest submarket of Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Sprouts Farmers Market is opening its fifth store – the third in 2014 – in the 220,000-square-foot Sahara Center on the corner of Sahara and Hualapai in Summerlin.
Along with the fitness and health food trends, we are seeing urgent care medical clinics opening up in retail locations. Dignity Health, United Health Care and Urgent Care Extra have opened multiple retail locations throughout the valley.
With the economy expected to perform at a quicker pace and the overall expectations of retail consumers trending toward better and more convenient services, this health-related trend should continue to grow and expand.
By Liz Clare, Principal at Capital Markets – Retail, and Jacqueline Young, Senior Vice President at Capital Markets Group at Avison Young. This article originally appeared in the August 2014 edition of Western Real Estate Business magazine.