Fitness Center Feasibility Study in New York

Small loans for a large fitness market

New York is 4 of 54 states for fitness center loans, and the class is 3 of 39 within the state, yet the typical loan is small. The median is $151,000, only 0.58x the class's national median; that gauge sets this cell apart from the New York all-asset SBA book and from gym lending nationally alike. New York gym loans in the middle half ranged from $50,000 to $479,600.

Smaller loans in this setting point toward studios, boutique formats and equipment financing rather than big-box clubs, though the files carry no format field, so that reading is an inference to verify. Franchise brands account for 36.0% of New York gym loans. SBA 7(a) carried 617 approvals and SBA 504 only 28.

Recovery since FY2021, and the lenders

Volume fell to 21 approvals in FY2021, worth $11.8 million, then climbed to 99 in FY2025 and 89 in FY2026, the latter worth $51.8 million. Across the decade 645 loans carried $282.0 million, with a location quotient of 0.84x. Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company is the current holder of 102 loans, but they total only $13.8 million, very small tickets; Newtek Bank, National Association holds 30 loans worth the same $13.8 million. TD Bank, National Association holds 60 and The Huntington National Bank 46.

New York gym outcomes are mixed. Cancellation took 13.1% or more of the state's fitness approvals from FY2017 to FY2024, with 15.1% as the ceiling when undisbursed loans are included. In the FY2017 to FY2021 funding cohort of 244 New York loans, the charge-off floor is 9.0% to date and 4.9% inside five years of approval. Both are floors on a cohort still repaying, so the true New York rates can only be higher.

What a New York fitness study must test

With small loans and a 9.0% loss floor, the study must show that a modest project can still cover its debt. Demand varies sharply across the state: Suffolk holds 77 approvals, New York County 74, Nassau and Westchester 58 each, Kings 53 and Erie 48, and a Manhattan studio and an Erie County club face different members, rents and competitors. Cost should be tested against a lease that may outlast the concept. Coverage has to survive membership churn and a slower ramp than the operator hopes for, and an appraisal on a leased studio will rest mostly on equipment, which a lender should value at resale rather than at cost.