Michael R. Robinson, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Executive Vice President on their Q3 2011 Results Earnings Call:
The number of open centers at September 30, 2011, was 92 compared with 88 at September 30, 2010.
We currently have 3 centers representing approximately 4% square-footage growth, under construction for 2012. We are targeting 6% plus square-footage growth for the year, with the difference coming from acquisitions or conversions we’re planning to complete in the next year or so.
Why aren’t they growing faster?
Bahram Akradi, Founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), President:
We are pushing as hard as we can. However, as we stated in the past, we are committed to looking for A and A+ sites across the country. We have numerous fantastic locations in the pipeline with the gestation times of 3 to 4 years. Now some of them, we started 2 years ago, some we started a year ago. So we have some great sites that we’re so excited about. But they are going to take longer time to get out of the pipeline for the opening
And as the next few years will prevail, we’ll demonstrated that our growth will become more balanced as a Healthy Way of Life company rather than just square-footage growth. Now we’re very committed to finding square-footage growth and improving that as well, but only in great locations.
How much does Lifetime Fitness pay for land/property? Akradi:
We may spend as much as $3 million to buy a piece of land or $15 million, depending on where we’re going.
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