Fitness World West Closing Next Month After 30+ Years In West Des Moines

WEST DES MOINES, IA — The original Fitness World exercise center in the metro area will close next month and the building will be torn down, owner Denise Johnson said Monday. Johnson said the property owner declined to renew her lease on Fitness World West after 20 years and told her the site will be available for redevelopment.

Johnson bought the fitness facility at 3200 Westown Parkway in 1997, but it had been located at that site for more than 10 years before she took over the business. Johnson also operates two Fitness World Clubs in Ankeny. One opened in early 2015 and another opened this summer.

Johnson said Nov. 14 will be the last day at the West Des Moines location and working toward that transition has been exhausting. “This is my baby, this is where it all started,” she told Patch, adding: “I absolutely would have stayed” if the land wasn’t being redeveloped.

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Members who had paid monthly through automatic debit had final payments pulled from their accounts in September, Johnson said, but they are still allowed to use the facility until it closes. She said she has "refunded hundreds of memberships" of clients who had prepaid membership fees.

“We’ve been talking to everyone personally when they come in,” Johnson said. “If they would like to transfer their membership, they just need to come in to West Des Moines and complete the paperwork. It’s a great deal … because we are transferring at these rates, so they wouldn’t have an increase or additional fees” to use the Ankeny facilities, she said.

Ankeny sites are Fitness World South, also known as 24 because it is open 24 hours a day. It opened at 110 N. Ankeny Blvd. this summer. Fitness World North, located in the Vintage Main building at The District at Prairie Trail, opened two and a half years ago. It's a two-story center with strength and conditioning equipment, a pool, an indoor track and a glass wall that overlooks Promenade Lake.

Johnson said the West Des Moines business had as many as 2,300 members at one time and has remained busy throughout the years despite other fitness facilities moving to the community. She said Fitness World Clubs are attractive to clients because they offer a number of classes, along with fitness tracks and swimming pools. In addition, employees are trained in fitness and exercise so they know how to instruct members on the proper techniques.

"Unless you went to school for it, how do you know how to exercise properly? Exercise requires education," she said. "It doesn’t do any good to go into some strip center with no staff and try to exercise if you don't know what you're doing."

Johnson, who ran track at Iowa State University and graduated with three degrees, has been a personal trainer, fitness instructor, coach and K-12 P.E. teacher during her career. She said people want variety in their workouts and Fitness World has offered that with a schedule of 100 classes a week.

"Group fitness classes and personal training are our two most popular things," she said. "People want that interaction with a live person. For some people, this is their social outlet."

Johnson told Patch on Monday she doesn’t rule out expanding outside of Ankeny and has "been talking to a couple of other communities about going there. I would love to expand someplace if I could find land, but I need an area that would have the same type of amenities that we have at Prairie Trail, which is 32,000 square feet.”

The Westown Parkway property where Fitness World West is located also has a strip center that has a number of vacant storefronts and a separate building that formerly held a restaurant and also is now empty. A for sale sign is posted on the property.

West Des Moines development officials said there has been "general interest" in the property in the past, but no specific redevelopment plans have been brought to the city for consideration.

Hours at Fitness World West have been scaled back due to the decreasing number of members in recent weeks. Currently it is open 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, and 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Johnson said that could change as the number of users drops off in coming weeks.

She said customers who have questions or need refunds on their prepaid memberships should stop in the West Des Moines location. For more information, call 515-223-5111.

Patch photo, Melissa Myers