By Cara Buckley, The Miami Herald Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Dec. 6--Millennium Partners, the developer of downtown Miami's Four Seasons, plans to build a 6,000-square-foot outdoor tennis club on a patch of downtown land. The condo/hotel itself, meanwhile, will house The Sports Club/LA, a hyperluxurious gym, spa and celebrity haunt that has enjoyed runaway success in Los Angeles and New York.
The club is slated to open next fall, to coincide with the opening of the Four Seasons and Millennium's planned tennis courts.
The tennis center will solve, at least temporarily, the problem of where Four Seasons guests can put racquet to ball. The Four Seasons had floated plans to bus tennis-keen guests to nearby courts. If the project goes through, the guests will be shuttled to the site, just eight blocks from the hotel.
Brian Collins, a principal with the Four Seasons, said the four-acre complex would primarily service condo dwellers in the Brickell corridor.
Millennium is banking on the project to drum up interest in the downtown Brickell area, where it owns eight additional acres of land that could be developed into retail shops and condominiums. The site is bordered by South Miami Avenue, the Metrorail track, Southwest Fifth Street and Southwest Seventh.
Eight tennis courts and an Olympic-size swimming pool, also roofless, are planned. Plans for the complex to be managed by Cliff Drysdale, the former tennis star who runs a tennis academy in Crandon Park and is the resident pro at the Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne.
The center will cost roughly $1 million to build. Membership, Collins estimated, will run at roughly $150 a month.
City Commissioner Johnny Winton believes the project will easily win city approval and bring pedestrians to a neighborhood in need of foot traffic and more patrons for its restaurants and clubs.
But the tennis center may not be a permanent fixture. When the demand for housing goes up, Winton said, the center will likely come down.
'It will last as long as it takes them to figure out what the housing market will accept on their site,' Winton said. 'If the market changes rapidly, probably three years; if the market doesn't materialize, I'd say 10.'
Collins concurred, estimating the complex's life span at five to 10 years. The developers did not receive city incentives to build on the site, he added.
The Four Seasons, for its part, should last much longer. The $390 million condo/hotel will be the second major luxury hotel to pierce the Brickell market, and its 70-story, mixed-use tower will be the largest building south of Atlanta -- hence worthy, its developers decided, of a high-end gym and spa.
Enter The Sports Club Co., touted as the Cadillac of the health-club world. The company runs 14 clubs and enjoys a devout following among the wealthy, the buff and the wealthy wannabe buff. Members include Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Tom Cruise, Kevin Spacey, Kim Cattrall and Princess Stephanie of Monaco. Perks, depending on which club you attend, include dog walkers, shoeshiners, rock-climbing walls, dermatology treatments and teeth-whitening sessions.
Membership privileges at the Miami club have not been finalized, but members can expect luxurious decor, plush carpeting, an array of workout classes, classes in five types of yoga, tai chi, a Jacuzzi and a cafe. The 40,000-square-foot club, expected to cost roughly $30 million to build, will cater to Four Seasons guests, residents and the paying public.
Membership is pricey: The initiation fee at most Sport Clubs is $1,295 plus $145 a month. Cofounder Nanette Pattee Francini, however, said Miami patrons who sign up early would get a bargain: $400 to join, then $90 a month. The membership office is scheduled to open in February.
The club will compete with the Downtown Athletic Club, mere blocks away. While the Athletic Club is cheaper, regularly charging $225 to join plus $52 a month, Francini expects people to move over because her clubs, she said, are more plush, more cutting edge and outfitted with scores of fitness-class options and private trainers.
The company's stand-alone facilities have thrived in Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. Noting that the clubs, which opened in 1979, have done well even during economic slumps, Francini predicted that the Miami site would further bolster the company's healthy track record.
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(c) 2002, The Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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