Fitness Center Feasibility Study in Kansas

Gyms rank high inside Kansas

Inside Kansas, fitness centers are one of the SBA's more familiar borrowers: by loan count the class is 4 of 39 among Kansas classes, while its 1.17x location quotient hands gyms more of the state's book than they get nationally. Measured against other states, the volume is modest, 105 approvals worth $40.9 million in FY2017 to FY2026 and a rank of 32 of 54. The loans are small. A median of $170,600 is 0.66x the national fitness median, but because our screen requires a gap from Kansas's all-class median as well as from the class nationally, the small ticket is not flagged as distinctive, and neither outcome floor is.

Franchise studios and Johnson County

Franchised concepts account for 41.9% of Kansas gym loans, which suggests branded studios and clubs make up a large part of this lending. Nearly all of it went through 7(a): 101 loans against 4 under SBA 504. Lenders are dispersed: INTRUST Bank National Association holds 8 loans worth $1.4 million, Small Business Bank 7 worth $783,700, The Huntington National Bank and First National Bank of Omaha 6 each, and Emprise Bank 5. Half the approvals sit between $60,200 and $450,000. Johnson County, with 53 approvals, is the clear center, followed by Sedgwick with 19 and Shawnee with 8. FY2023 was the busiest year at 20 loans, while FY2021's 9 loans came to only $691,600.

Few cancellations, later losses

Kansas gym approvals cancel less often than the class nationally: the floor is 5.7% for the FY2017 to FY2024 cohort, and the ceiling that counts loans not yet disbursed reaches 8.0%. Losses tell a different story. Among the 46 Kansas fitness loans funded over FY2017 to FY2021, the charged-off floor is 10.9%, yet just 2.2% failed inside five years, so most of the damage came after the early years, and the overall floor runs above fitness nationally.

Late losses are the pattern a Kansas fitness study has to plan against. Gyms often open strong on presale memberships and then face attrition and new competitors as the concept ages, so demand should be measured on sustained membership, not opening counts: population within a short drive, the clubs and studios already competing, and realistic churn. Cost covers equipment, which wears out and needs replacing inside the loan term, and the build-out of a leased space. Debt service coverage should be tested in a mature year with churn and equipment refresh included, not only in the first. With loans this small there is usually little real estate for an appraiser, so the lender depends on the study's cash-flow case and, for a franchise, on the system's unit economics as disclosed.

Each rate on this page is a cohort floor that open loans can still raise, and the named lenders are the current holders SBA reports for Kansas gym loans.