Mid-States Fitness Equipment is on the move — but it’s not going far.
The residential and commercial health and fitness equipment business will relocate to 507 S. St. Francis later this year, said Craig Bally, Mid-States Fitness owner.
“We’ll most likely be in there by Dec. 1,” he said.
Mid-States has called a building just a few blocks away, at 235 S. Topeka, home since 2003. As the company looked for a new location, Bally said he and his team wanted to stay downtown — and they found what they were after.
“We really liked being around the arena,” said Bally, who has been leasing his current location since selling the property to Cornejo Holdings in spring 2021. “I instantly knew this is what I wanted.”
Bally Properties LLC closed on the new property earlier this year. The purchase involved two buildings and also includes the 501 and 503 S. St. Francis addresses, Bally said.
Whitney Ward and Krista Lowry of J.P. Weigand & Sons worked with Bally on the transaction, while John Rupp and Jake Steven of ReeceNichols South Central Kansas represented the seller.
On St. Francis, Mid-States will have 12,000 square feet — with 5,000 of that for the showroom and 6,000 square feet for warehouse space.
“It’ll be a perfect size for us,” said Bally, who added there is a lot of unused space at the current building, which has more than 35,000 square feet.
The new location will also include offices and a service center.
Larry Cook Construction is leading the renovation effort to get the space ready for opening.
Bally said the customer experience — featuring the ability to look at a wide-ranging selection — should remain largely the same, and that both his team (around 11 employees) and customers are looking forward to the move.
“It’s one of the only places you can go where you can get on 40-50 pieces of equipment if you want to,” he said.
The move is happening as Mid-States, founded in 1983, has seen a string of strong years.
At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Bally said Mid-States saw a “surge of consumers wanting products in their homes.”
Even though commercial sales took a hit early in the pandemic, Mid-States saw strong overall growth in 2020 compared to 2019, Bally said.
The momentum has continued, he said, with Mid-States seeing 15% growth in 2021 over the year prior — and 2022 is so far outpacing 2021, year to date, by 15%.
Bally said he is seeing people still have interest in at-home equipment even if they’ve started going back to the gym some — and “commercial is coming back pretty strong.”
“We’re doing very well,” he said.
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