This Lifestyle Family Fitness club in St. Petersburg, FL, is one of 34 clubs in the state of Florida the company will continue to operate. Photo by Cheri Jones.

As Life Time Fitness grows its portfolio nationally, Lifestyle Family Fitness is drastically cutting back its operations, focusing its efforts instead in its home state of Florida.

Last month, in a deal that involved two top 10 club companies on Club Industry’s Top 100 Clubs list, Life Time acquired four Lifestyle clubs, two each in the Indianapolis and Columbus, OH, areas. Before the deal is finalized, though, Life Time could acquire more Lifestyle clubs, including up to five of the six Lifestyle clubs in North Carolina, says Jason Thunstrom, vice president of public relations and corporate communications for Chanhassen, MN-based Life Time. (Update: As of Dec. 1, Life Time is operating a total of nine former Lifestyle clubs, Thunstrom says.)

With the sale and club closures, St. Petersburg, FL-based Lifestyle is leaving the Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina markets entirely. It closed six clubs in Ohio, two clubs in Indianapolis and, according to Thunstrom, is closing the remaining club in North Carolina (Cary). The company, which had 55 clubs before the sale, now has 33 clubs—all in Florida—where it plans to make investments and upgrades. (Lifestyle closed two Florida clubs this month.)

Lifestyle made its first foray into Columbus in 2005 when it purchased eight former California Fitness Clubs.

“A lot of club companies grew at the height of the market—2005, 2006, 2007,” says Geoff Dyer, founder and former CEO of Lifestyle Family Fitness. “We developed clubs when rents were high and the economy was at a very high level as far as economic growth and employment. Subsequent to that time, we’ve seen continuous increases in unemployment levels, and there’s been a lot of rent reductions that other businesses have been able to enjoy and grow with. We didn’t have those privileges.

“We had clubs that we had built that hadn’t fully matured, some that had. Some of those markets were doing extremely well. It was really a great opportunity for us to do something with Life Time that made us elect not to continue our growth in those states.”

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Although Life Time is a public company, the company is not compelled to disclose the terms of each deal individually and instead reports all acquisition investments in an aggregated manner each quarter, Thunstrom says.

In a statement, Bahram Akradi, Life Time’s chairman, president and CEO, said that once the company absorbs the integration costs in the deal, it expects the acquisition “to be neutral to slightly accretive” to its 2012 earnings.

“Consistent with our long-held strategy, the acquisition and operation of these clubs, which are similar to our existing, smaller format Life Time centers, brings an infill opportunity to markets in which we already operate large Life Time destinations,” Akradi said in the statement. “We are excited to extend our Healthy Way of Life programs, services and certified experts to a new base of members as we further expand in these current Life Time markets via this agreement.”

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2012 Penton Media Inc.