Orangetheory Fitness to open at Waterfront Plaza

With the new year – and its New Year’s resolutions – there will be a new fitness center at Waterfront Plaza at the northwest corner of 13th and Webb Road.

Orangetheory Fitness is opening in 3,200 square feet at the north end of the strip center next to Equity Bank.

“It’s just a great area,” says Pat Walsh, a co-owner in the business.

“Whole Foods is a great anchor tenant,” he says. “We think we kind of align with … what they are pursuing.”

Orangetheory is a franchise that Walsh says he learned about through his wife.

“Like most things,” he says.

Walsh says he’s not always been a big fan of cardio workouts, but Orangetheory has changed that.

It’s group interval training for about 20 people at a time for hourlong classes.

Each person is hooked up to a heart rate monitor that goes around the chest. It monitors levels of oxygen and calories burned.

“It kind of keeps track of all that for you,” Walsh says.

The monitors show five zones, or levels of activity, on a screen during class.

The orange zone is an elevated heart rate. The red zone is all out, such as in a race.

Walsh says the goal is to spend 20 minutes in orange and red zones.

“We feel like that is the optimal hourlong workout.”

Classes include treadmills, weights and rowing machines among other things.

“It’s a great product,” Walsh says.

He says participants keep burning calories at a strong rate after class.

Walsh says there are about 250 Orangetheory Fitness centers nationally, and the chain is now expanding internationally as well.

“This will be our first one,” he says.

His wife, Annie, is helping open the business along with co-owners Joe Froehle and Haylee Shaver, who also will manage the studio and be the face of the business in Wichita.

Walsh says they plan more centers eventually.

Don Piros of Landmark Commercial Real Estate and Adam Clements of Builders Inc.handled the deal for the space.

The Waterfront’s Stephen Clark II says he’s going to sign up for classes.

“I’m excited to try it,” he says.

He says it makes sense for Waterfront Plaza, too.

“It fits very nicely with Pure Barre and Whole Foods and the Whole Foods customers.”

The business will open in early 2016.

“This has kind of gotten me to where I can not mind being on the treadmill,” Walsh says.

“It’s nice not doing it on your own,” he says. “For me it clicked, and for a lot of people it clicks.”

Though he says he’s “never been much of a class guy,” Walsh says he is now.

“My wife’s pretty happy with that, too.”