Inside the $2 million-plus vision to bring Gold's Gym to Gas Worx
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: May 18, 2023

The future home of Gold's Gym Gas Worx is still a barren warehouse, but Tampa real estate broker Kimberlee Curtis has already mapped out every detail, from where the squat racks will be to a loading dock with skyline views that will be transformed into a functional training turf.

Curtis and her business partners have leased a 25,000-square-foot warehouse at 802 N. 12th St., just south of Four Green Fields. The Gold's warehouse is owned by Ybor City developer Darryl Shaw and was included in the 50-plus acre rezoning approval to make way for the Gas Worx district.

In April, Curtis traveled to Berlin to visit RSG Group's headquarters. RSG bought Gold's out of bankruptcy in 2020 when the chain voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 after Covid-19 shutdowns upended its business model. She's bought $1 million in gym equipment and will invest another $1 million on construction; she said she's waiting on permits to begin.

If their projections hold true, Gas Worx will open by year's end — well ahead of the district's first phase of residential units, which are under construction on the former Tampa Park apartments site. Gas Worx will bring thousands of new residents and office workers to a part of downtown Tampa that's currently a no man's land between the Channel district and Ybor City. But even before Gas Worx opens, Curtis sees huge potential for Gold's — she lives in the Channel district and works out at Crunch Fitness in Grand Central at Kennedy, which she says has 10,000 members.

She is also chairwoman of the Channel district Community Redevelopment Area's Community Advisory Committee. (CRAs have a state designation that allows them to use locally generated money to fund projects within the CRA.)

"There's an opportunity here for someone to come in," Curtis said.

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Curtis has been strength training for 20 years, but opening her own gym only recently became a possibility. She's the founder of The KEC Group Real Estate and has a background in construction management. Over lunch, she mentioned the idea to her business partners; they'd been pursuing a multifamily development in St. Petersburg.

Her partners, whom Curtis declined to identify, are a couple who own a produce business in New York and have a second home in the Tampa Bay region. She met them three years ago when they became her real estate clients.

They agreed there was an opportunity for a strength-training facility in downtown Tampa. Curtis, who's originally from Kentucky, knew it had to be Gold's; the first time she ever strength trained was at a Gold's Gym in Cincinnati.

Gold's, it turned out, was interested in Tampa Bay: The chain was talking to other groups about opening in the region, but none were local.

"I really want to deliver something to our members that gives them a real-deal strength training experience," Curtis said.

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Her real estate background is shaping the gym as much as her fitness background. She's devoting about 3,000 square feet of the warehouse's second floor to coworking space, and there will be a tier of membership that allows for gym and coworking access. She's also building a posing room for bodybuilding competitors, and a Tampa-based coaching company will move its operations to that space.

Curtis knew Shaw from involvement in the CRA; he was her first call when she and her business partners began looking for real estate. The warehouse, which Shaw built for $3 million in 2016, was previously home to a coin-wrapping business. Besides the functional strength area on the loading dock, she plans to build an outdoor training yard near the gym's entrance, paying homage to Gold's Venice Beach flagship.

"I was like, I can do interesting things with this space," she said. "It just had a good vibe."