Developer weighing Planet Fitness gym for Great Falls

A developer for Planet Fitness is seeking a site in Great Falls at which he hopes to open one of large, “non-intimidating” and inexpensive gyms by sometime in 2018.

In a phone interview with the Tribune, Dave Leon of Albany, N.Y., said he has been a franchise owner with Planet Fitness since 2004, and recently sold 20 stores, most in upper state New York, to develop stores in a franchise territory that includes Montana and Wyoming.

“I am a serious outdoorsman who loves to hunt and fish, and wanted to move out west,” he said.

Leon already has opened a Planet Fitness gym in Helena that he said is attracting folks who haven’t gone to gyms before. He said he will open fitness centers in Missoula and Bozeman this year and could open them in Great Falls, Billings, Butte and Kalispell in 2018.

The businessman said he has considered a few sites in Great Falls, including the former Hastings Entertainment building, which he said doesn’t have enough parking spaces, and the former Sears location in the Holiday Village Mall, but lost out to another developer who is converting that space to use by Hobby Lobby and PetSmart.

“It’s not easy finding space for a 25,000 square foot building that also has room for at least 140 parking spaces,” he said.

Leon said he has been in the fitness business for 30 years, and earlier was a bodybuilder and Mr. America contestant.

He said his gyms weren’t doing great against large competitors, until he visited one of the early Planet Fitness centers in New Hampshire and became sold on their unorthodox business model “that appeals to grandmothers, young people and everybody in between.”

“I knew they’d found a niche I wanted to be involved with,” Leon said, noting that Planet Fitness has grown from nine clubs that year in 2004 to 1,300 clubs now.

Planet Fitness clubs have more than 100 cardio machines and light weights, he said.

But it caters to the 80 percent of the public that shies away from gyms because they feel uncomfortable and judged or can’t afford steep monthly fees, he said.

Planet Fitness has friendly, welcoming signs, small-sized, free classes led by fitness instructors and $10 monthly fees.

The gyms call themselves “Judgment Free Zones,” where people can feel comfortable regardless of their fitness level. Planet Fitness centers also have “lunk alarms” that patrons can set off as a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reminder against other patrons slamming weights to the ground, grunting or somehow intimidating or judging other gym users.