Fitness fanatics and gym goers are being spoiled for choice in Santa Monica as another interpretation of the workout routine is arriving as Anytime Fitness will soon open its doors at 435 4th Street. This adds to the ever-increasing number of athletic-related outlets already there, including the newly opened Fred Fitness, Road Runner Sports and SportsFest, although it looks like the promised pickleball courts are in a slight spot of bother.
Located between Santa Monica Blvd and Broadway, the historically listed site used to be home to West Elm furniture store, before it moved into the renovated building next door in 2018.
The interior of the 5,000 sq ft space currently resembles a construction site, with incomplete walls, hanging wires and pipes, but franchise owner Fraz Ahmed is supremely confident that everything will be finished by the scheduled opening date of Friday, February 21, 2025.
Fitness Anytime is an international chain of franchised gyms, operating in 31 countries, from Australia to Austria and the UK to the UAE. This new Santa Monica outlet is only one of four already in the Los Angeles Westside area, the others being in Culver City, El Segundo and Redondo Beach.
“I looked at a bunch of different businesses. My background is in strategy consulting within the apparel industry, so I worked a lot with different global brands solving supply chain and merchandising problems and logistics, but I always liked the idea of doing something a little bit more entrepreneurial,” Ahmed says.
One of three brothers, Ahmed grew up in St Louis in a single parent household. He originally studied to be an engineer and achieved his Master Degree in electrical engineering. However, it was clear the boys all had talent as one is now a surgeon in New York City and Fraz and his other brother have gone into business together, beginning with a series of co-working spaces.
But being a little bit of a fitness fanatic himself, he said that the idea of combining his talents and applying them to this particular industry seemed like a perfect match.
“I looked at Anytime Fitness and I loved the model, because it’s a mix between a standard big box gym, which is just come in, do your thing, you're in there with a crowd of people, but you don't have that focused attention,” Ahmed said, adding, “And then you have the on the other end of the spectrum, you have the studio classes, but again, it's like if you don't, if you want to do a regular workout, you can't. You could only do their classes that they offer, and if you are not available at that time, tough luck.”
He said that the market positioning and subsequent branding of Anytime Fitness appealed to him as it goes to great lengths to avoid the super-fit, toned, tanned influencer-esque demographic, because that’s simply not reality for most of us, adding that it’s multigenerational and some people have been members for 20 or 30 years, especially in smaller communities.
The concept started back in 2002 when the first Anytime Fitness opened in Cambridge, Minnesota. Since then, the brand has steadily grown and four years later, the first outlet opened outside of the US in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Four years after that, the 1,000th location opened in Wake Village, Texas and in 2019, an Anytime Fitness gym was created on the cruise ship Magellan Explorer, which spends months at a time moored around the Antarctic coast, technically meaning the brand has outlets on every continent.
“The model they use is based around communities, so, this isn’t trying to be a flagship store or anything, but the community here in Santa Monica is ideal, I think. Even the membership prices reflect that, so right now we're running a promotion at $50 a month. Tell me another gym here that is at the level of quality that we have at $50 a month…” Ahmed said.
He said that after his successful co-working business venture he applied the same super-analytical approach to finding the right location for his new franchised outlet to open.
“At the end of the day, it’s about trying to run a business, it’s about trying to be successful … I was hesitant about Santa Monica at first, given all the problems with the homeless and some of the local politics, but [ultimately] I think there’s a lot of potential here in the city … I could have chosen any franchise brand of fitness center or gym, but the attitude and approach of Anytime resonated with me,” said Ahmed.
Once completed, the new gym will offer an open-plan, warehouse-style look and feel with a free weights section, together with cardio machines, shower facilities, session space and all the things you usually find in modern, all-encompassing fitness center. Check the social media pages at facebook.com/AnytimeFitnessSantaMonicaCA and instagram.com/anytimefitness_santamonica for all the latest membership deals and Ahmed said that all the fees from pre-opening membership deals will go towards relief for victims of the wildfires.
scott.snowden@smdp.com
