Planet Fitness planning move into former San Jose Save Mart location
SANJOSE » Planet Fitness intends to move into a southeast San Jose Save Mart store, in a fresh example of new retail jumping into old store spaces.
“The demographics are just right for us in San Jose,” said Tony Pal, principal executive with Saber Fitness, a franchisee of NewHampshire-based Planet Fitness.
In a similar move re- cently reported by this news organization, Sprouts Farmers Market is planning to open a new grocery store at a shut- down Safeway store, also in San Jose.
And during 2017, Amazon Books opened a bricksand-mortar store in San Jose’s Santana Row, in a space around the corner fromwhere a Borders Books closed its doors years ago in the same shopping center.
“This is a good location for a Planet Fitness,” said David Taxin, a partner with San Jose- based Meacham Oppenheimer, a commercial realty brokerage that specializes in the retail market. “Older store spaces in good locations are attractive to new retailers. The world of fitness is doing pretty well in Silicon Valley.”
The new Planet Fitness gym should be open by the fall of this year, Pal said. It will be located at 3251 S.
White Road near Aborn Road. A wide-ranging renovation is underway to prepare the old Save Mart for its new occupant.
“We are a fitness club that charges $10 a month, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Pal said. “About 85 percent of the people in our research don’t go to high-end gyms like 24-Hour Fitness or the other clubs. They either feel intimidated or they don’t want to spend $30 or $40 a month.”
The big focus at the new Planet Fitness — as well as the chain’s other outlets — is cardio machines, according to Pal.
“We find our demographic really likes the cardios and the treadmills,” Pal said. “We don’t have basketball courts, or swimming pools or saunas. But we will always have tons of machines available.”
The new Planet Fitness also will offer a fulltime licensed trainer who will conduct specialized classes for groups of about five people.
The outlet also offers an upgraded membership for $20 a month, Pal said.
The transaction to get Planet Fitness into the old Save Mart space, which totals 43,000 square feet, might also bolster a Lucky’s store across the street, since Lucky’s will have less supermarket competition in the vicinity.
“Other than grocers, there aren’t a lot of major players for this size of real estate space,” Taxin said.