- April 20, 2026
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The co-founder of a Midwest-headquartered fitness franchise and his Sarasota franchisee say an early rush of success of the company’s first Florida location has prompted significant expansion plans for the brand.
Fitness Premier 24/7, a company with 20 locations that is based in Illinois, made its debut in the Sunshine State in October, when the gym opened a location on Clark Road.
In its first five months, the Sarasota business has surpassed expectations, according to Fitness Premier 24/7 Vice President Rick King. “We have three potential franchisees that are in the queue with us right now based off the success that they see at the Sarasota location,” King says.
In a shopping center at the busy intersection of Clark and Beneva roads, Fitness Premier 24/7 Sarasota is surrounded by foot traffic-generating neighbors like Harbor Freight, Keke’s Breakfast Cafe, Pet Supermarket and Publix.
“The whole plaza really does well,” Fitness Premier 24/7 Sarasota owner Dani Stiegelmeyer says, as a stream of patrons works out behind her.
Part of her focus is on building a value-based membership, she says, rather than getting “as many people in a box as we can," a philosophy that guides the entire franchise.
Instead, Stegelmeyer says: “We’re focused on retention and building a community.”
In its first five months of operation, Stiegelmeyer says, Fitness Premier 24/7 Sarasota has a 97% retention rate.
Members of Fitness Premier 24/7 Sarasota range from 15 to 92 years old, according to Stiegelmeyer, who says they run the gamut from professional athletes — including an Olympian — attracted by the equipment to others drawn to the clean, friendly environment. Some come in once or twice a week for personal training, while other members use the gym around the same time every day.
Stiegelmeyer, a fitness enthusiast, has a background in building websites and in the medical industry. She became aware of the Fitness Premier franchise opportunity through a contractor friend who did work for the company and was also involved in real estate, who helped her secure the Clark Road location.
Previously, the space at 3530 Clark Road was home to Gym SRQ, but it had been vacant for a couple of years, according to Stiegelmeyer. She completely redid the interior, putting in epoxy flooring, removing one wall to increase space for the cardio section, installing two walls of mirrors and building a wall for a recovery room.
She also had to order equipment. Among the specialty pieces: Fitness Premier 24/7 Sarasota offers Frost lockers that provide cold therapy, which had to be shipped from Idaho.
“I think we were one of the first in Florida for them,” Stiegelmeyer says. The business also has more unique equipment like a Viking shoulder press, Gluteator machine for glutes, linear row and others.
While she declines to disclose her capital investment, revenue and membership data, Stiegelmeyer says the business has met every monthly goal set by the franchisor.
“The first month’s goal was to hire and form a team,” Stiegelmeyer says. “A lot of people are like, ‘Let’s get 100 members in the door.’ No, let’s get a team, and then we can focus on being better for our members in the community that we’re trying to build.”
As of March, Fitness Premier 24/7 Sarasota has a team of seven employees.
King, who co-founded Fitness Premier 24/7 in Illinois in 2006, had his eye on the Florida market and specifically the Gulf Coast, where his grandparents had a house in Fort Myers, for some time.
“What I see in the Florida market that we were very attracted to was one, obviously, it has a growing population,” King says.
In addition to population growth, another indicator stands out.
“Florida has a very high penetration percentage,” King says, explaining that a larger percentage of the population in the Sunshine State is a member of a gym than in Illinois.
For all the dedication to fitness, however, there is “not a lot of personalization,” King says.
Nationwide, "the industry has shifted to what we would categorize as a high-volume, low-cost model," a trend he says is particularly pronounced in Florida.
The big-box prevalence provides a huge opportunity for another type of provider, according to King.
“It left a gap in the market for the kind of model and the presentation that we have,” he says. “Our focus is around the value proposition.”
Potential members are exposed to a different, more personal experience starting with the sales process, he says. Consumers are “seeing and feeling the value from the second they see or call the facility,” King says. “The people inquiring are joining at a high rate, and people joining are staying at a high rate. We’re doing something right.”
Physically, Fitness Premier 24/7 offers a more moderate footprint than its competitors, with facilities ranging from 8,000 to 15,000 square feet. The Sarasota location is nearly 13,000 square feet. Within that space, it provides specialty equipment, personal training, group fitness classes and a recovery area. Memberships at the Sarasota gym start at $45 a month.
“The way we really looked at the Florida market is, we're not coming in to try to compete” against clubs with “30,000 and 40,000-square-foot boxes at 10 bucks a month,” King says. “But we know that there are people in those markets looking for more. They’re looking for better service, they’re looking for a better value and they’re willing to pay more than $10 a month for that. And we’ve been pretty validated in the first five months in Sarasota.”
While he declines to disclose specific revenue targets, King says that Fitness Premier 24/7 Sarasota "is performing profitably already in the first five months, which is very encouraging."
According to the Fitness Premier franchise website, select company-owned clubs posted revenue from $546,000 to more than $1.11 million in 2024.
The estimated initial investment for a Fitness Premier 24/7 location is $456,000 to $1.59 million. Its model can work anywhere from towns with 10,000 residents to dense areas with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, King says.
In the future, Stiegelmeyer says, she is interested in opening a second location, from Venice to Lakewood Ranch, as the opportunity presents itself.
The goal for the brand overall, meanwhile, is “to get to 50 or maybe 100” total gyms overall.
“We’d rather have slow and steady controlled growth than open 1,000 locations in the next 10 years,” King says.
For the Gulf Coast, there is no specific target.
“But if I were to have to give a range,” King says, “I would tell you between 10 and 15 up and down the Gulf Coast” in the next three to five years. “It’s one of those things — once you start getting market traction, then it really could go quickly.”
