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Planet Fitness to open near downtown Detroit later this summer

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A new Planet Fitness is expected to open in Detroit in August near the edge of downtown.

The gym will go into an existing building at 1200 Fort St., between downtown and the George W. Young Post Office facility. The roughly 17,000-square-foot building previously housed a Salvation Army store and donation center.

It will be the 65th Planet Fitness in the state — and the fourth in Detroit — for Northville-based Epic Fitness Group, which is the largest Planet Fitness franchise group in Michigan and has never closed a location.

In a phone interview Friday, Epic Fitness Group CEO and co-owner Bryan Rief said they anticipate that the majority of the new gym’s members will be area residents. Others could be commuters who work in the downtown area and use a Planet Fitness “Black Card” that can access any Planet Fitness location.

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“We have been actively looking for locations in the central business district for years now, and this is one that actually fit the bill,” Rief said. “We’ve been looking in Corktown … and there was nothing available. So when we found out that this former Salvation Army (building) was available, we contacted the landlord and one thing led to another.”

The franchise group previously planned to open a Planet Fitness in 2018 near downtown at 1400 Woodbridge St., but dropped that plan amid a reported leasing disagreement. The group’s three existing Detroit locations are in the Gateway Marketplace on 8 Mile, the Henry Ford Detroit Pistons Performance Center near New Center and near Dearborn.

A basic, single-location membership at the new Detroit location will be $15 per month and parking will be free. The entire Planet Fitness gym chain recently raised that entry-level price from $10, which it had been for over two decades.

The price of a Black Card membership with universal access is $24.99 per month.

“It’s been 20-plus years that we’ve held the $10 membership, and we finally had to pull the trigger,” Rief said. “Obviously inflation has taken its toll, and I think we were one of the last companies that had held off on raising our prices, but it was time. Fifteen dollars is still very affordable.”

Rief said the metro Detroit gym and fitness studio industry continues to bounce back after the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far, Rief said his gyms have seen no significant impact to their business from the popularity of newer injectable weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic, which can make it easier for some people to drop pounds without needing to hit the gym.

“Our business is up nicely year over year, so we’re very pleased with our growth,” Rief said.

Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on X @jcreindl

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