Healthy Rivalry for Planned Chic Spas : Experts Believe That Only One of the Upscale Irvine Fitness Clubs Will Be Able to Survive

A $20-million executive health club to be built in Irvine next year is being billed by its backers as a one-of-a-kind facility for upscale, body-conscious Orange County residents.

Coincidentally, backers of a $25-million executive health club scheduled to be built in Irvine next year, right across the freeway from the other one-of-a-kind facility, are calling theirs a unique club for the county’s upper crust.

The war of words is escalating sharply as the rival health spas--Sports Club/Irvine and Sporting Club--begin soliciting members. Many in the fitness center business say that only one of the heavyweights will survive the marketing struggle.

On paper, the clubs are nearly identical: each will encompass 100,000 square feet; initiation fees will be as high as $1,000, and both will offer amenities that include executive dining rooms, child-care centers, cocktail lounges and hair salons.

“People are confusing them, and that’s a problem,” said Michael Talla, president of Sports Connection, the developer of Sports Club/Irvine.

Talla, who said his club will be the victor in the upcoming struggle, maintains that the county doesn’t have enough well-heeled fitness buffs to support two clubs, although, he added, that will change in five years as the county’s population south of the Costa Mesa Freeway keeps growing.

Industry observers agree, and they speculate that one of the two proposed new clubs will back out. But developers of each facility insist they aren’t going to scrap their plans, and both clubs have started signing up members in what has become a fierce marketing battle.

Sporting Club got a jump on its competitor last month when it announced the coming of its Irvine facility in newspaper ads and opened a sales office near the still-undisturbed construction site.

So far, 72 members have paid initiation fees of $500 to $1,000 each. “We like to promote our clubs well in advance to build excitement in the community,” said Darren Hodgdon, national sales and marketing director for Sporting Club, a unit of Naiman Co. The San Diego commercial office developer owns Sporting Clubs in Washington, Atlanta, Montreal and Denver and plans to open four other executive clubs next year.

Talla said that because of Sporting Club’s aggressive marketing push, Sports Club/Irvine opened its sales office Tuesday and started its promotion “many months before we wanted to. They were advertising, and we had to to stay competitive.”

Sports Club/LA has been successful, Talla said, “because we have 250,000 to 300,000 people living within 3 miles. Here the density doesn’t approach that. But the market is a big one.”

Whether it is big enough for two ultrachic health clubs, however, is in doubt.

“I’m dubious that two clubs can succeed,” said Jake Steinman, publisher of City Sports magazine, a fitness enthusiasts’ magazine that publishes regional editions in several areas including Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

Several of the existing upscale health clubs in Orange County say that they are operating below their full membership capacity.

But most of those operators said that while two new clubs will draw away some members, the drain won’t be enough to hurt them.

“We have 800 members, so we operate on a very individual level” that a 5,000-member club can’t provide, said Geoff Goodman, general manager of Irvine Club House, a 26,000-square-foot club that opened in 1978.

Ray Cuddy, owner of the Newport Beach Sporting House, said the opening of one new club would heighten interest in working out and would benefit existing clubs. But two new clubs, he said, would oversaturate the market.

Talla and partner Nanette Pattee-Francini are the brains behind Sports Club/LA, which opened in West Los Angeles in 1987 with a star-studded gala and quickly reached a membership limit of 5,000. That $22-million club has been described by reviewers as “a sports palace” and “the Acropolis of physical-fitness centers.” Their company also operates the nine-club Sports Connection chain, which inspired the movie “Perfect.”

Sports Club/Irvine, scheduled to open in August, 1989--at least five months before its rival--is to be built in Koll Center Irvine, an office, hotel and retail complex on Main Street north of the San Diego Freeway.

The Sporting Club will be south of the freeway on Von Karman Avenue, in the Birtcher/Lakeshore Towers office project.

Providing construction begins on schedule, Sports Club is likely to break ground first. The developer must pass only a final zoning compliance review and could receive a building permit as early as next month, said Pam Davis, an associate planner for Irvine.

The Sporting Club, which applied for its conditional use permit several months ago, isn’t expected to receive a building permit before early next year, Davis said.

Talla said: “We’ve got the edge. People will be relaxing in our club for months while theirs is still being built.”

Brandon Birtcher, a partner in the development firm that chose Sporting Club to help anchor its office development, said that it would “be nice” if the spa could open the same week as Sports Club/Irvine. But he added that he was not concerned about the later opening because “a lot of people are going to wait to judge us head-to-head, then decide. And then they’ll like Sporting Club.”

Based on descriptions from the developers, the two clubs will offer similar facilities: indoor and outdoor pools; squash, handball and racquetball courts; child-care operations; sun decks; on-site medical staffs, and executive dining rooms.

Sporting Club is to be landscaped with streams, ponds and exotic flowers, Hodgdon said.

Talla said his club will have vaulted ceilings, skylights, fountains and lots of marble.

At Sports Club/Irvine, members will be able to get their cars washed and detailed. At Sporting Club, members will be able to sign up for club-sponsored wine-tasting excursions.

“We’ll be an urban resort-for-the-day, not just a health club. It’ll be like going to Disneyland, and you won’t want to leave,” said Sports Club co-owner Pattee-Francini.

Memberships at both clubs will cost considerably more than at other health spas in the county. Sports Club/Irvine’s basic membership initially will be $500, with monthly dues of $85 once the club opens. The comparable membership at Sporting Club also is $500, with $75 per month dues.

Executive memberships, which come with even more amenities and plusher locker rooms, are being sold for $1,000 at each club. Executive membership dues will be $135 per month at Sports Club, and $150 per month at Sporting Club.

Both membership fees and monthly rates are expected to increase at both clubs as the opening days draw near. And once open, membership rates could nearly double, both developers said. Talla said that Sports Club/LA had a $1,000 pre-opening fee for executive members but now charges $1,750 for an executive membership.

Sports Club seeks 5,000 members and Sporting Club 4,000, but developers for the clubs said they don’t expect to reach those limits until up to a year after opening--providing that both open.