Planet Fitness Said No to New Franchisees for a Decade. Here’s How This Guy Got a Yes.

For ten years, Planet Fitness had one rule for new franchisees: buy your way in. Then a hotel developer showed up. By Jon Small | edited by Dan Bova | Sep 09, 2026 For more than ten years, the only way into the Planet Fitness system was to buy an existing franchisee’s gym, the way mega-operator Flynn Group did in 2023. That changed this year. Ian McClure, who builds hotels for a living, just did something no outside franchisee has done in over a decade. He signed a brand-new development deal with Planet Fitness instead of buying out an existing operator’s gyms, Franchise Times reports. His company, Gulf Coast Hotel Management, has 40-plus extended-stay properties across 14 states and 30 more Wyndham locations under construction in Texas, Florida and Colorado. He landed three area development deals to open more than a dozen Planet Fitness gyms on Florida’s west coast. The buy-in isn’t cheap. A single location runs $1.3 million to $5.4 million depending on equipment financing — real money for a franchise built on $10-a-month memberships. McClure is betting hospitality know-how translates. “Planet Fitness stood out as the ideal partner,” he said, citing its “industry leadership” and “brand appeal.”