Lifetime Fitness 2011 Annual Report Download - page 16

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Junior and Other Membership Plans. Children under the age of 12 qualify for a junior membership, with dues of $5
to $10 per month, depending on the center. The junior membership provides access to the child care center, pools
and gyms at designated times. We do not count junior memberships as reported memberships since they are already
part of the family membership. We also have occasionally offered other memberships plans aimed to attract niche
members.
Other Subscription Plan. We offer a Flex membership for members who choose to “freeze” rather than terminate
their membership with us. Flex memberships are $10 to $20 per month, whether an individual, couple or a family.
Flex members continue to have online access to myLT.com, which includes Member Advantage and interest-area
content, a subscription to Experience Life® magazine and the ability to resume an access membership without
paying joining fees. We do not count these Flex memberships in our membership count since they do not have
access to our centers. We do not count these Flex memberships as terminations in our attrition calculation since they
remain connected to Life Time Fitness and continue to receive other benefits associated with a Life Time Fitness
membership. We experienced significant growth in this membership type in 2011, which we believe was due to our
members’ desire to maintain a relationship with Life Time Fitness notwithstanding economic challenges. As of
December 31, 2010, we had 70,302 Flex memberships. In 2011, we added more than 20,000 Flex memberships for a
total of 92,806 as of December 31, 2011.
Usage
Our centers are generally open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We typically experience the highest level of
member activity at a center during the 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. time periods on weekdays
and during the 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. time period on weekends. Our centers are appropriately staffed during peak
and non-peak hours to provide each member with a positive experience. We have introduced a number of initiatives
focused on getting our members more involved and connected with the goal of higher membership usage and
increased member satisfaction. The following table reports our usage statistics:
Total number of visits (in millions)
Average number of visits per month, per center
Average visits per year, per membership
For the Year Ended December 31,
2011
63.8
58,456
99
2010
60.1
57,407
98
2009
57.7
57,792
98
2008
50.4
56,300
94
2007
42.1
54,647
88
New Center Site Selection and Construction
Site Selection. Our management devotes significant time and resources to analyze each prospective site (including
both undeveloped land and existing facilities available for lease) on the basis of predetermined physical,
demographic, psychographic and competitive criteria. We focus mainly on markets that will allow us to operate
multiple centers that create certain efficiencies in marketing and branding activities, but we select each site based on
whether that site can support an individual center.
After we identify a potential site, we develop a business plan for a center on that site. This requires analysis from
certain functional areas of management and approval from the finance committee of our board of directors. We
believe that our disciplined, structured process reduces the potential for developing a site that the market cannot
support.
Design and Construction. Our wholly owned subsidiary, FCA Construction, provides us with construction
management, architecture and design services and millwork fabrication. With approximately 85 employees, FCA
Construction is dedicated solely to the design and construction of each new center and the remodel of existing and
acquired centers.
Our architecture division has developed a series of prototypical plans and specifications that can be easily adapted to
each new site. Project architects along with our construction management teams monitor quality and oversee the
construction progress of each new center.