Long Island retail landlords look to gym chains, fitness studios to fill space

The Real Deal reported earlier this year on landlords searching for solutions to the so-called retail apocalypse in suburbia by signing up new types of tenants, including high-end gyms, by subdividing former big box spaces. On Long Island, some property owners are trying to offset the downturn hitting brick-and-mortar stores by turning to such gyms and specialty fitness studios, according to Newsday. With 2019 expected to be a record-breaking year for store closings across the country, the outlet cited data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that the number of fitness and recreational sports centers across Nassau and Suffolk counties rose 10.3 percent between 2013 and 2018. Long Island now has 483 locations that fit the fitness and gym criteria, many of them outposts opened by growing chains like 24 Hour Fitness, Crunch Fitness and L.A. Fitness, Newsday reported. Just last month, Peloton opened a 2,400-square-foot store at the Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City. Despite the new retail landscape, Newsday also looked at some of the vanquished retailers that have bid adieu to Long Island (and the rest of the country) in recent decades, such as Caldor, Crazy Eddie, King Kullen, Nobody Beats the Wiz, Pergament and Waldbaum’s. [Newsday] — Brian Baxter