BY CODY THORN
Weitzman’s Bob Young talks growth in workout- focused businesses Throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, an influx of workout-focused businesses are opening, many of them having moved into what were vacant spaces. Bob Young, executive managing director of real estate company Weitzman, spoke with Community Impact about the reasons his company has seen growth in the real estate market. To what could you attribute the growth in workout-focused businesses? There’s two moving parts. On the consumer side, with the pandemic—health and wellness was re-energized and took a new look. Once the masks were off, that morphed into almost a cultural kind of thing—going to the gym with other people and looking good. And then take the real estate side.
Vacancies that were created by [the] closing of major retailers, these gyms realized that that could be fertile for them to go get memberships and be in the markets where rooftops were there and customers were there. How much has the perception of gyms changed? In the past they were looked at like, “We don’t think we want them in a shopping center,” based on restrictions that maybe a grocery store had on parking. Now, they drive people to shopping centers. They became kind of their own anchor, along with Target or Kroger or whatever is there. In the past, it seemed like big-box vacancies would stay vacant for a long time, but it sounds like that is changing now? That is totally accurate. That’s exactly what’s happened. If you have to divide [the space] and put two tenants in there, that’s expensive. So many of these gyms, because they had a larger footprint, they were able to get the benefit of not subdividing space. All of a sudden, they’re everywhere. I don’t think that they’re going to slow down anytime soon.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For a longer version, visit communityimpact.com .
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