Trimming the fat

FitHouse bets on short-term leases

A new exercise studio is muscling its way into the Big Apple — and plans to use an inventive type of lease to quickly expand to 15 locations, The Post has learned.

As part of its fast-paced expansion, FitHouse will use so-called shotgun leases — extremely flexible arrangements that allow the landlord or the studio to cancel with a 60- or 90day notice.

The first FitHouse loca- tion will be at 276 Bowery — with another three studios opening in quick succession next month in Flatiron, Chelsea and Soho.

FitHouse will offer unlimited yoga, dance, highintensity interval training, pilates and barre classes for $99 a month.

It is hunting for 3,000plus-square-foot spaces, it said.

“We like the flexibility of opening spaces fast and closing them fast if we find the location is not right,” FitHouse founder and Chief Executive Clément Benoit, 33, told The Post.

FitHouse invests up to $150,000 in each of its new spaces.

A serial entrepreneur who launched a restaurantdelivery company at age 21 in France and a logistics company, GeoPost, that was sold last year to French Groupe La Poste, Benoit claims that FitHouse “has the most agile approach to scalability in the fitness industry.”

As part of its strategy, FitHouse will look to re- place shuttered studios in popular neighborhoods, Benoit added.

The company is also aggressively poaching instructors across the city, dangling higher pay — $100 to $150 per hour — compared with the $75 to $90 pay at comparable studios, according to Benoit.

To fuel its expansion, Benoit has already raised $3 million in venture capital led by Global Founders Capital, including Xavier Niel and Fabrice Grinda.