TWO unusual candidates for the title of fitness guru to the nation have recently emerged, each of them with an unassailable business pedigree but neither of them a name immediately associated with the fitness market in this country.
Mr Ben Dunne, former head of Dunnes Stores Limited, and Mr Albert Gubay, businessman and founder of the 3 Guys supermarket chain in the 1970s, have both indicated their intention to open chains of health centres in several locations around the country. Interestingly, both have chosen the Blanchardstown area of north Dublin as the launch site for their respective enterprises, and they are likely to be in competition in a number of other areas too.
"I think that, just like in the last business I was in, which was retail trading, you must go where the other supermarkets are, because that's where the business is," Mr Dunne said. "I would see not just two leisure centres in the Blanchardstown area in the future, but far more if the people want it.
Mr Martin Henihan of Henry J. Lyons and Partners, architects for the Gubay-backed health centres, said Mr Gubay was not worried about competition from Mr Dunne's centres. "Mr Gubay welcomes the competition," he said. "We are way ahead of him [Mr Dunne], in every sense.
Mr Gubay, who is believed to have assets of over £250 million, is planning seven state-of-the-art health clubs, at a cost of around £6 million each. Four will be based in Dublin, with three further centres planned for Galway, Limerick and Cork. All are expected to be up and running by Easter 1998. The development company is Total Fitness, which was set up specifically to develop the seven centres.
The first centre, at the junction of the West Link motorway and the Northern Cross at Castleknock/Blanchardstown, will open in September. The 58,000-square-foot premises will house two pools (one of 25 metres and the other of 10 metres), as well as a plunge pool, four squash courts, an ultra modern fitness centre with over 300 items of equipment, two fitness assessment areas, aerobics studios, a juice bar, a healthfood store and a sporting goods centre.
According to Mr Henihan, the building contract is currently going out to tender for a second centre on the Malahide Road, for which a site has already been acquired. This should be completed by next Easter, and will be followed by a centre at Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown - the flagship of the operation - which should be open by this time next year.
"We are progressing on Cork and Limerick, but we want to get Dublin set up and finished first Mr Henihan said.
Progress on Mr Dunne's centres is not as advanced. A site has been acquired beside the Town Centre development in Blanchardstown for the first of Mr Dunne's gymnasia, which are being developed by a specially-formed company called Bark Ireland and the planning application is currently before An Bord Pleanala.
According to Mr Dunne, the £5.5 million Blanchardstown centre will open next year, assuming the planning application is successful. The 40,000-square-foot development will include a swimming pool, cardio-vascular equipment, heavy weights, massage rooms, beauty salons, a coffee shop and bar. As with the Gubay development, membership will be limited - in the Bark Ireland centres' case to 3,000 people.
"One of the things we considered when approaching it was that a lot of these health centres open up and people say there are too many people at certain times of the day," Mr Dunne said. "For around £1 a day you'll be a member here. If we are going to do things right, it's just physically impossible to run it to the standards we are going to run ours to with more than that number of people. We wouldn't be giving the level of service the members would require.
Bark Ireland has also applied for planning permission on a site in Kilkenny; negotiations are in progress for a site in Limerick and the company is also looking at Cork. "There's obviously more scope than that, and we are actively trying to seek sites in other areas of Dublin," Mr Dunne said.
The impending competition from Messrs Dunne and Gubay could have repercussions for owners of smaller independent gymnasia and health centres around the city. "Competition is good, but there is huge money going into these centres which the average person running a gym cannot afford," says Ms Nuala Daly, owner of the Litton Lane Studios in Dublin which trains health and fitness instructors for the industry.
Around 100 instructors graduate each year from Litton Lane's National Certificate in Exercise and Fitness course, which it runs in conjunction with the University of Limerick. Demand for its graduates is high, indicating a bouyant fitness market in the city, but Ms Daly's view is that the new centres "will certainly affect, to a degree, the city centre".
Yet with huge numbers of people still working and residing in or near the city centre, and with the smaller gymnasia offering a degree of familiarity and personal service which the larger centres cannot match, there may still be room in the market for all the players.
