Content area
Full text
It's Monday morning not long after the sun has risen, and RunTex Inc. owner Paul Carrozza is lacing up his jogging shoes. In a few minutes, Gov. Rick Perry will join him, along with a dozen other people, for a run along Town Lake's hikeand-bike trail.
This isn't a made-for-television media event. It's just daily life for a group of men seeking some exercise before starting another day at the office.
Proprietors of fitness-related businesses - from retail stores to health clubs - say they couldn't ask for a better setting in Texas for their financial endeavors than Austin. With a median, age in the early 30s, Austin is one of the most healthconscious towns in the nation. Hiking, biking, swimming and running are always en vogue here. It's evident in the city's 14,300 acres of parks and 1,000-acre, spring-fed pool, only a bike ride away from the Lone Star State's Capitol.
Carrozza, who has launched four retail stores, a production company for racing events and a marathon training group over the last 20 years here, calls Austin "a city within a park."
"Why I see Austin being unique in the business model is that Town Lake is the health club," he says. "Barton Creek greenbelt is the health club."
This year, Men's Fitness magazine ranked Austin as the 13th "fittest" city in the nation. Austin was the only city in Texas to make the cut. The magazine evaluated sports participation, availability of parks, air and water quality, and fruit and vegetation consumption as some of the judging criterion.
Gene LaMott, president and CEO of Venice, Calif.-based Gold's Gym, says it was those types of statistics that led his company to put its label on nine clubs in Texas' capital city last year.
"What we found in Austin was that it was a fairly young population, very educated population, a good mix of males and females and a very active lifestyle user," LaMott says. "It made it very easy for us to choose this market."
Gold's entered the local market in April 2002, buying out the existing eight World Gym facilities in Austin. It added one more location in the fourth quarter of 2002 with the purchase of Fitness Connection in South Austin. According...