How Fitness Brands Are Opening Locations Faster and Scaling Smarter

As fitness brands compress development timelines while elevating design and experience, manufacturers like Grid are redefining how facilities are built and scaled.

Not long ago, building a large-format enterprise fitness facility was a six- to eight-month process. Today, that timeline has shrunk significantly. Many operators are working toward opening new locations in as little as 18-20 weeks.

The implications of this shift are financial.

For brands opening 15, 20 or more locations per year, time is directly tied to revenue. A few weeks gained or lost in development can influence how many doors open in a given year, the speed of market penetration and how efficiently capital is deployed.

At the same time, expectations for the spaces themselves have evolved. Brands are placing greater emphasis on aesthetics, materials and overall environment, while expanding into additional modalities such as recovery, wellness and specialty training. Maintaining consistency as brands scale has become more challenging than ever before.

That combination is raising the bar — one Grid is purpose-built to address.

Grid operates as a single-source manufacturing partner across multiple finish categories, including lockers, flooring and wall systems. The model is designed to support scale, allowing brands to move faster while maintaining consistency across locations.

As Drew White, President of Grid, explains, the shift in operator priorities is clear.

“In the early days, the conversation was around saving a small percentage on cost,” he says. “As brands scale, that changes. It becomes about how you save time. If you can shave a few weeks off development, that can be the difference between building 19 locations or 21 in a year.”

Where Projects Break Down

White says for many operators, the biggest constraint in development is coordination.

Traditional buildouts often require multiple vendors across flooring, lockers, wall systems and finishes, each working on separate timelines with separate specifications. The result is a process with multiple points of friction, where delays and inconsistencies can compound across projects.

“When you’re working with several vendors to complete one facility, you’re introducing variability at every step,” White says. “Lead times don’t always align. Finishes may not match perfectly. When you’re scaling across multiple locations, it becomes difficult to maintain consistency and even harder to identify where issues are coming from.”

That complexity becomes more pronounced at scale, when operators are managing dozens of projects across markets simultaneously.

“We’ve seen brands with 15 or more locations in development at once,” White says. “If something goes wrong in one, you have to react quickly to make sure it doesn’t impact the others. That’s hard to do when everything is fragmented.”

A Single Focus

From its inception, Grid has primarily focused on one market..

“Fitness is our core focus,” he says. “We’re not trying to serve five different markets. That allows us to understand the nuances of the space and control the process from start to finish.”

A simple example is the locker room. Benches placed in front of lockers are a common feature, but size and spacing matter. Oversized benches can disrupt flow and negatively impact the member experience.

“These are the kinds of details that matter,” White says. “If you’re not focused on fitness, you follow the drawings. We’re thinking about how the space actually functions.”

Grid also thinks about things from a program level.

“What we talk about internally is program over product,” White says. “We’re not just delivering individual components and our customers are certainly not ordering products from a catalog. We’re building custom programs that can scale with a brand.”

White says brands come to them with their standards and their footprint, and Grid takes it from there. “We’re handling schematics, design coordination and installation.” 

Crunch, which has worked with Grid for more than a decade, sees this approach as central to its growth strategy.

“They are a true partner,” says Brent Saul, VP of Construction at Crunch. “There’s a constant focus on improving how we build and scale. Whether it’s new materials or evolving designs, Grid consistently finds solutions.” 

Grid also sources 98 percent of its raw materials domestically, and all operations are based in the United States, so the company maintains tight control over production and can respond quickly to shifting timelines or design needs.

“Having that level of control allows us to pivot when needed and keep projects moving,” White says. “It also gives our partners more certainty around timing.”

Consistency at Scale

As brands move from early growth into multi-unit expansion, consistency becomes foundational.

“A member should have a similar experience whether they’re walking into club number seven or club number seventy,” White says. “That only happens when the systems behind the build are consistent.”

By consolidating multiple finish categories under one partner, operators reduce the number of variables in each project. Fewer handoffs mean fewer opportunities for delays, mismatches or misalignment between teams.

It also creates a more reliable path to execution across locations.

“When everything is coordinated, you can move faster and with more confidence,” White says. “You know what you’re getting, you know how it’s going to be installed, and you know it will align with the rest of the brand.”

This approach allows brands to compress development schedules, often reducing timelines by several weeks. 

“We’ve been able to help partners move from around 22 weeks down closer to 18,” White says. “That may not sound like a huge number, but at scale it adds up quickly.”

A More Complex Facility

The modern fitness facility is no longer a single open gym floor.

As operators expand into recovery, Pilates, wellness and outdoor spaces, the number of materials and finishes within a single location continues to grow. A single facility may have as many as ten different flooring types.

Managing that level of complexity through separate vendors can slow the process and introduce inconsistencies. A unified approach allows those elements to be aligned from the outset, supporting both speed and cohesion.

For operators, the implications are clear — growth is no longer just about identifying markets or refining programming. It is about how efficiently a brand can bring its concept to life, repeatedly, without compromising quality or experience.

“The brands that are growing today are thinking about how to scale in a consistent way,” White says. “They need partners who can move at that pace and support that level of execution.”

As development timelines continue to compress, the role of infrastructure partners is becoming more central.

“We look at it as supporting our partners in getting to market as efficiently as possible,” White says. “If we can help them move faster, maintain consistency and execute at a high level across locations, that’s where we create value.”