If you’ve been following the news, you know just how big the health and wellness industry has become. These days, the affluent and health-obsessed are not just signing up for yoga classes, but taking their love of fitness home by moving into buildings that have everything from fitness instructors, spiritual guidance and nutritional advisors.
Colleen Werner
LulaFit, a wellness amenities company that former ballerina Colleen Werner founded out of Chicago in 2014, has been partnering with new luxury developments across the country with companies such as Bozzuto Group and VillageGreen. The company works with residential and, now also, commercial developments to bring a fitness program to its buildings. This could be anything from building a gym and bringing in a staff of fitness instructors, to installing a room where building residents can get together for weekly trivia night.
“Developments are increasingly moving pasts just filling space,” Werner told Inman. “We need to focus on really curating a lifestyle that people find sustainable and attainable.”
Werner said LulaFit brings that extra something that people who move into high-end apartments are looking for, fitness amenities, spas and various sports programs. LulaFit also arranges for the wellness club to have staff such as personal trainers, massage therapists, nutritionists and wellness coaches on-site to provide lessons.
Prices for a health club vary depending on how many units a complex has and what type of amenities a building owner wants to have. A full-on spa, for example, would be more expensive than a gym and rooms for fitness classes. Werner said that the idea is to build a sort of wellness club that can be used for many different fitness-related purposes over the years.
“That might look like a room that, at 9 a.m., is a yoga studio,” Werner said. “At 11 a.m., the walls can open up for circuit training and by 6:30 p.m. the walls are back in place and there’s room for a mindfulness class.”
LulaFit works with clients to create custom spaces. Some developers advertise their entire building as a “wellness living space,” while others plan a regular complex with a small health club as a perk. According to Werner, interest in this type of space has grown as the wellness industry expanded over the last five years. As people become more wellness and health-conscious, many are starting to seek out living spaces that specifically accommodate their sporty lifestyle.
“The most sophisticated piece of technology that we’re ever going to own is our body,” she said. “Leveraging that is the best thing that people can to do to be a better performer both at work and in life.”
