A trio of franchisees want to make wellness industry strides in the Sunshine State with a deal to open 20 Basecamp Fitness units.
Bobby Hines and Josh Bailey, who with their Wellness Acquisition Group already own 15 Anytime Fitness locations in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Utah, tapped Austin Wright of 8th Wonder Equity to partner with them on the agreement. They plan to develop Basecamp studios in the Florida cities of Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando and Tampa.
“We’ve always wanted to scale, but we wanted to wait and see what Self Esteem Brands would do,” Hines said. “We knew they would purchase a studio brand of some sort and having the opportunity to partner with them again was important to us.”
Self Esteem Brands is also the parent of Anytime Fitness, Waxing the City and The Bar Method. It acquired Basecamp Fitness in October 2018 from Nick Swinmurn, the founder of online shoe store Zappos who created his boutique fitness concept in 2013 and grew it to five units. SEB started franchising Basecamp two years ago, now with 16 locations open offering condensed 35-minute, high intensity group workouts.
Basecamp is a new name in the industry, something Bailey embraces. “Because it’s not a known brand yet, we get to put our strategy and experiences that we’ve learned through the years and apply it,” he said. “We feel like we’re getting in at the very beginning, and having our hand in to develop it is really exciting for us.”
“It fit with our business plan to diversify,” Hines said. “It’s a newer and less-known brand, so there’s a leap of faith there. But although it’s a new franchise, it’s not a new franchisor, so there’s a lot of trust in that.”
Joining Hines and Bailey on the venture is Wright, who also has a history in the fitness industry. According to Bailey, Wright is an investor on the project who operates an Anytime Fitness in the Los Angeles area.
Basecamp also recently announced multi-unit deals with existing Anytime Fitness franchisees for development in New York and California. Brothers Michael and Adam Orecchio, who operate an Anytime in New Jersey, signed a three-unit agreement to bring Basecamp to the greater New York City region. Daniel Sussman, a franchisee in San Diego, plans to open three studios in that market.
Hines said Basecamp Fitness units are usually between 2,500 and 3,500 square feet, working best in strip malls. The cost to open a studio ranges from $435,878 to $846,132.