Planet Fitness hits roadblock

Hidden Cameras Found In Tanning Rooms At planet fitness

The Village Board postponed approving a tax incentive package for a new gym.

Planet Fitness aims to move into a location at 17425 Torrence Ave., which has been vacant since PetSmart left in 2012. The company requested a Class 8 incentive package, which lowers the property taxes from 25 percent to 10 percent of market value for 10 years, 15 percent in the 11th year and 20 percent in the 12th year.

Trustees said they’d like to see the property filled by a tenant that will generate more sales tax revenue than a gym.

“A Class 8 tax incentive just doesn’t make any sense to me. Here we have a stand-alone building, in a TIF district which this business has no reason to take advantage of,” Trustee Patty Eidam said. “We have the potential for a business to come in to generate a lot of sales tax dollars.”

“We’re not getting anything,” Trustee Tony DeLaurentis said. “If we have to sit on it four or five more years, I’m willing to sit on it.”

Travis Bandstra, Lansing director of economic development, said finding a tenant for the property has been difficult, with only three inquiries in the five years since PetSmart closed.

“You can never really predict the future, what will come of interest down the road,” Bandstra said.

Trustees also asked Police Chief Dennis Murrin about the safety of a 24-hour gym.

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“Simply because it’s Torrence Avenue after midnight, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to me,” Eidam said.

Murrin said he “wasn’t overly concerned” with the building’s safety.

“I think that building would get minimal use during the overnight hours,” Murrin said. “Only a handful of businesses in town are open overnight, anyway. We would just put this on our list of businesses that we check (at night).”

Bryan Rishforth, an owner and developer for Planet Fitness, told the board the Class 8 was necessary for the gym to open in Lansing.

“We do have some sales tax,” Rishforth said. “We get between 4,000 and 8,000 visits per week and that generates serious tax revenue. That’s why we have lots and lots of villages around the nation lobbying for us to come in their cities and fill vacant spaces.”

Rishforth said Planet Fitness has 24 locations which all operate around the clock in Cook County and security is “not an issue.”

“The taxes are exorbitant. We need the abatement to make it work. We need the 24-hour operation to make it work,” he said. “(Without those things) we will, quite frankly, take our business elsewhere which we don’t want to do but it’s a clear-cut decision for us.”