Fitness Forum exits the health-club business

DeWITT  —  Aspen Athletic Clubs stretched its footprint for the third time this year with a Dec. 1 acquisition of Fitness Forum Health Club in DeWitt.

The move gives Aspen its fifth location in 24,000 square feet at 6800 E. Genesee St. — its first club to the east of Syracuse. It also takes Fitness Forum out of the health-club field, leaving the company to focus on its 28-clinic physical-therapy business.

It is the first time Aspen has grown through an acquisition. The company launched its two other new locations this year from scratch. It started a 30,000-square-foot club at 3440 W. Genesee St. in Camillus in September, a few months after opening a 6,000-square-foot location at 125 E. Jefferson St. in downtown Syracuse.

Aspen Athletic didn’t originally intend to start three new gyms in a one-year superset, according to Nichole Polos, who owns and manages the company with her husband, Brent Polos. The company simply took advantage of opportunities that aligned with its long-term goals, she says.

“You can’t control timing in the business world,” she says. “But it’s definitely been part of our master plan. We had looked at a site in DeWitt years ago.”

Aspen wanted to have locations in Syracuse’s north, east, and west suburbs, along with one in the city itself. The DeWitt location fulfills that goal. So when Fitness Forum approached Aspen at the end of the summer, the company was willing to work out an agreement.

Negotiations continued until the deal closed in December. Neither of the companies are releasing terms of the transaction, however.

Aspen is offering jobs to all Fitness Forum Health Club employees. The DeWitt gym had about 40 workers, and Polos expects 20 to accept new positions. That will swell Aspen’s employment rolls to 190 people across its five locations.

Renovations are in the pipeline at the former Fitness Forum Health Club, which Aspen is now operating under its own name. They will include turning some offices into workout space and are likely to take place in the spring. However, plans are not yet finalized.

“Our main goal is people first,” Polos says. “We’re focused on getting the employees that want to come on board with us hired and trained. Also with the members, we’re trying to sit down and talk to each member one-on-one.”

Existing members will be paying less to use the gym, she adds. The average Fitness Forum Health Club member paid between $40 and $50 a month, whereas Aspen’s rates range from $9.99 to $24.99 per month.

Polos declines to share Aspen’s revenue totals or growth projections. The company is not likely to jump into any more major expansions for a year or two, she adds. It could eventually add express locations in the Syracuse area or open new clubs in other regions, such as the Southern Tier.

The health-club chain leases its new DeWitt space from the Edgewater Salina Co., according to Mike Durkin, a leasing and sales agent with Syracuse–based CBD Brokerage, LLC representing Aspen.

A section of Aspen’s newly acquired health club contains a Fitness Forum Physical Therapy operation. Fitness Forum had run the physical-therapy site within a portion of its health club. Now that it has sold the health club, it will sublease the physical-therapy space from Aspen so that it can continue to provide therapy there. Six Fitness Forum therapists work in that location.

Fitness Forum sold the health club because it felt it could no longer dedicate the proper resources to it, according to the company’s president and CEO, James Smith.

“Our core business, physical therapy and sports medicine, that industry is a challenge at this time,” he says. “I love fitness and I love the fitness business, but it was getting less and less attention from us.”

Fitness Forum Physical Therapy employs nearly 100 people in the Syracuse and Utica areas. It has 10 locations between the two regions. Companywide, it employs about 300 people.

The firm is on pace to generate $18 million in revenue. It generally targets growth between 3 percent and 5 percent, Smith says.

“I think working with Aspen is going to be exciting,” he says. “We need to make sure people realize this was done for the benefit of the members and the staff that was there.”

Fitness Forum Physical Therapy is headquartered in 6,000 square feet at 231 Walton St. in Syracuse. It owns or operates physical-therapy locations in six northeastern states.

Aspen Athletic Clubs is based in a 28,500-square-foot club at 5863 E. Circle Drive in Cicero. In addition to that location and its three clubs that are new this year, it also has a club at 8015 Oswego Road in the town of Clay that is just under 20,000 square feet.

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com