24 Hour Fitness opening $10M gym in former Las Vegas furniture store

24 Hour Fitness founder Mark Mastrov is opening a new gym, with a new brand, in Las Vegas.

His fitness chain on Friday announced plans to open a workout spot called Founders Club early next year at the northeast corner of Sahara Avenue and Fort Apache Road, in the space previously occupied by an Ashley furniture store.

On Friday, workers using a scissor lift installed a big “Coming Soon” banner for Founders Club by 24 Hour Fitness above the main entrance.

24 Hour Fitness currently has only one location in Southern Nevada — off Town Center Drive at Summerlin Parkway — and Mastrov recently told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that his team signed a lease for another outpost in the valley, though at the time he declined to say where.

Overall, the new gym marks an expansion effort by a well-known fitness chain that, under prior ownership, closed all but one of its Las Vegas-area locations after the pandemic hit.

‘Designed for people who want to get after it’

Founders Club, at 9200 W. Sahara Ave., in Canyon Lakes Plaza, will span more than 45,000 square feet.

It will include free weights and cardio machines, a large turf area, a group fitness studio, and a juice bar and cafe, according to a news release.

The gym will also feature a recovery lounge with hyperbaric chambers, massage chairs and red-light saunas; a medical spa with “IV therapy”; a glute and lower-body training area; a DJ booth; and a “posing room,” or a space with mirrors to watch yourself flex.

All told, the new gym amounts to a $10 million investment, and pre-opening membership rates span from about $60 to $100 per month, the news release stated.

“It is designed for people who want to get after it, where they can train, recover and stay a while,” the release said.

Mastrov launched the fitness company in 1983 with a single gym in San Leandro, California, near Oakland.

In 2005, when 24 Hour Fitness had a reported 300-plus locations, he sold the chain to a private equity firm for $1.68 billion.

Bankruptcy filing

When the COVID-19 pandemic upended daily life in 2020, the U.S. health-club industry was thrown into turmoil, along with virtually every other segment of the economy.

24 Hour Fitness was one of countless companies that got hit hard by the economic fallout from the public health crisis, filing for bankruptcy protection in June 2020.

At the time, 24 Hour Fitness closed eight locations in the Las Vegas area. Ultimately, just one was left locally, in Summerlin.

It also closed gyms throughout the chain.

24 Hour Fitness had more than 440 locations in early 2020, shortly before the pandemic hit, and when it emerged from bankruptcy protection in late 2020, it had nearly 300 clubs nationwide.

Eventually, 24 Hour Fitness announced this past January that Mastrov had teamed with investment firm LongRange Capital to reacquire the company.

Terms were not disclosed, though Mastrov recently told the Review-Journal that the purchase price was “a lot less” than what he had sold the company for about 20 years earlier.

Meanwhile, its Summerlin gym underwent a $1.5 million remodel since he reacquired the company, and Mastrov said his team was looking at two or three other possible new locations in the valley.

Contact Eli Segall at [email protected] or 702-383-0342.