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Walker Webcast: Life Time CEO Akradi Expects to “Prevail Immensely” as Economy Recovers

Underpinning the growth of Life Time over the past 28 years has been founder and CEO Bahram Akradi’s positing of two questions. As paraphrased by Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker on the latest Walker Webcast, they’re ”what would I want?” and “how would I want to be treated?”

It’s why, for example, Life Time fitness centers tend to span 70,000 square feet or more rather than the typical 30,000 square feet. Akradi wasn’t aiming for bigness for its own sake when he proposed such a layout to his then-employer three decades ago—it’s just that properly accommodating what members would ideally want in such facilities requires more space.

That fitness chain, then one of the nation’s largest and now out of business, shot down Akradi’s idea, motivating him to strike out on his own. Today, Life Time has expanded its mandate into wellness and partnering on mixed-use developments. It’s also among the best positioned to rebound from the pandemic, which has seen some big-name competitors file for Chapter 11 in the past few months.

“I think Life Time will prevail immensely when things come back,” Akradi said on Wednesday’s webcast. Already the chain has seen some 21 million visits by members since reopening began in Oklahoma this past May, and near-term plans call for more new Life Time fitness centers coming on line next year.

Walker noted that fitness clubs have been one of two industries unfairly tagged as high-risk for spread of the coronavirus, with the other one being airlines. In the case of Life Time, those 21 million visits have been associated with about 800 reported cases—compared to what are now hundreds of thousands of cases in any state with comparable population.

Akradi credited his COO, Jeff Zwiefel, with developing COVID safety protocols that run to nearly 500 pages. Public health experts “all say they haven’t seen any company do anything like this,” Akradi said Wednesday.

Characteristically for a man with an appetite for thinking big, Akradi has three Life Time Living developments—combining a fully amenitized luxury apartment complex with adjacent Life Time Athletic Resort & Spa—rolling out in 2021 and 2022, starting with Coral Gables, FL this coming February. “My vision is really creating healthy living, healthy aging villages,” said Akradi.

Replays of the Nov. 11 webcast are available by clicking here.

For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Paul Bubny

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About Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny serves as Senior Content Director for Connect Commercial Real Estate, a role to which he brings 16-plus years’ experience covering the commercial real estate industry and 30-plus years in business-to-business journalism. In this capacity, he oversees daily operations while also reporting on both local/regional markets and national trends, covering individual transactions across all property types, as well as delving into broader subject matter. He produces 7-10 daily news stories per day and works with the Connect team and clients to develop longer-form content, ranging from Q&As to thought-leadership pieces. Prior to joining Connect, Paul was Managing Editor for both Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com at American Lawyer Media, where he oversaw operations at both publications while also producing daily news and feature-length articles. His tenure in B2B publishing stretches back into the print era, and he has served as Editor in Chief on four national trade publications. Since 1999, Paul has volunteered as the newsletter editor of passenger rail advocacy groups (one national, one local).

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