Real Estate: BeatBike opens first outlet with five-year deal pegged at $1.2 million.By ELLIOT GOLAN SFVBJ Monday, February 10, 2014
In Shape: BeatBike co-owner Ashton Whited at 18700 Ventura Blvd. gym.
One of the few vacant spots at the upscale Village Walk at Tarzana retail center has filled up.
BeatBike LLC, a take on the popular SoulCycle stationery cycling exercise concept that started a few years ago in New York and has made its way to West Hollywood and the Westside, opened its doors last week after signing a five-year lease worth about $1.2 million. The “spinning” workout concept is highlighted by intimate classes with dim lights and pulsing music.
The club paid a steep price to get started in the five-year-old center, paying about $4 a foot for the nearly 6,000 square feet of second-floor space at 18700 Venture Blvd., said John DeGrinis, senior executive vice president at the Encino office of Colliers International.
“That center is an oasis,” said DeGrinis, who represented BeatBike. “It’s a higher-end retail location that gets a lot of foot traffic.”
Village Walk has brought in a lot of high-traffic tenants since opening in 2009, including a 50,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market Inc. and other popular retail tenants, including a Starbucks and Chipotle Mexican Grill on the first floor below BeatBike.
The 150,000-square-foot center is owned by Village at Tarzana LP and is more than 80 percent leased following the BeatBike deal, according to data from Colliers.
Ashton Whited, co-owner of the gym, said BeatBike is targeting professionals from their early 20s to 40s who would spin at BeatBike and have memberships at Equinox Fitness, the upscale gym chain out of New York.
The spinning room at BeatBike features 42 bikes with classes starting at $22 each, but the price is discounted if a package is purchased. There is no conventional membership system, so she expects visitors might have memberships at full gyms too.
“This is a boutique fitness experience,” said Whited, 24, who co-owns the gym with her mother and father, Tara Whited and Ron Whited. Her father also owns three Sky High Sports LLC trampoline gym franchises, all in the greater Valley.
BeatBike has a bottled juice bar, free Wi-Fi, a small weight training room where personal training can be scheduled, individual changing rooms and an outdoor seating area with couches.