Published: Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 / Updated: Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 07:43 PM
Planet Fitness moving into vacant Food Lion near Tega Cay
FORT MILL --
More than a year after Food Lion near Tega Cay closed its doors, a tenant has signed on to fill the void left by the store.
Planet Fitness has taken over the former Food Lion space in the Tega Cay Village Shopping Center and has already started construction to prepare for a September opening date.
“Planet Fitness is in my opinion the strongest and best positioned domestic fitness concept, with more than 500 locations, and about a dozen in the Charlotte [area],” broker Aaron Ligon wrote in an email to the Fort Mill Times. “Their advertising, ‘judgment free’ campaign, and ultra-affordable membership options meet the market demand head-on.”
Gerald Kennedy, Planet Fitness franchise owner, owns six Planet Fitness locations in the Charlotte area. He said he has been eyeing the Fort Mill area for almost three years, waiting for the right place to come available.
Upfitting the former Food Lion will cost close to $1 million, he said. Additions will include adding a locker room, full tanning salon area, massage area, new flooring, lighting and more.
Planet Fitness will not have childcare, he said.
“We’re for the average person,” Kennedy said. “The majority of our members have never worked out. We have circuit training, free weights and cardio – lots of cardio – in a non-intimidating environment. We want a comfortable place where people are respected and welcome.”
Basic memberships at $10 per month. Additions like tanning and massage can take the membership up to $19.99 a month.
Tega Cay Village Shopping Center has approximately 30 tenant spaces. Planet Fitness will be the anchor tenant. Only five spaces are currently vacant.
Planet Fitness isn’t the only new tenant to the area. Recently, Village Pizza announced it would be reopening in the Tega Cay Village Shopping Center under the management team that ran it for years before it was sold and became Market Street Pizza under different owners.
Marion Davenport, owner of Chirp ‘n Chatter, a longtime business in the strip mall, was pleased to hear that the space would be filled, even if it will be months before Planet Fitness is ready to open.
“It will bring more traffic and probably bring people who have not necessarily been in this shopping center before,” she said.
Curves, located next door to where Planet Fitness is moving in, has been in the shopping center for more than five years. While that’s also a fitness center, manager D. Vercota said she doesn’t see Planet Fitness as competition.
“We are a concept unto ourselves. We’re a complete weight management center, complete coaching and workout center, and we’re all ladies as well,” Vercota said.
But she was hoping the shopping center would lease the space to a tenant who would bring something new to the area, With a YMCA down the street, Curves next door and other fitness centers nearby, “They could have made wiser use of the space,” Vercota said.
“I think it’s ridiculous they are saturating the area with fitness centers.”