Last year, service-oriented tenants, led by gyms, fitness studios and spas, accounted for over 50% of total retail square footage in the U.S. for the first time ever, indicating a significant shift in consumer spending toward wellness
If there’s any indication of how much fitness and wellness is booming, look no further than leasing activity.
For the first time ever, retail leasing by service-oriented tenants overtook goods-based retail leasing, with gyms, salons and spas leading the shift, according to CoStar data first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Fifteen years ago, service tenants’ piece of the total leasing pie was roughly 40% — but 2025 numbers reveal that service-based tenants significantly increased their footprint to over 50% of total retail square footage.
“Consumer dollars remain firmly pointed at services,” said CoStar’s national director of U.S. retail analytics, Brandon Svec, told WSJ. “There’s nothing to suggest that that’s going to be shifting anytime soon.”
E-commerce could be influencing that trend, reducing the amount of storefront space needed to sell retail items like clothing and accessories.
The growth of studios and spas doesn’t come as a surprise, given the rapid and ongoing explosive growth of the wellness market, which recently hit a peak of $6.8 trillion, according to the Global Wellness Institute, and whose value has doubled since 2013 and grew 7.9% from 2023 to 2024.
Svec revealed he thinks the trend will persist, as even bars and restaurants indicate signs of weakening, thanks to reduced spending by some consumers and large chains difficult to compete with.
He also suggested that while material goods like handbags used to be status symbols, wellness spending seems to have taken that role, with more offerings like longevity-oriented treatments or the rise of sauna and cold plunge facilities.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that fitness and wellness brands have leased 100,000 square feet in Manhattan’s Flatiron and NoMad neighborhoods in the past two years, based on data from the Flatiron NoMad Partnership. There, it’s hard not to come across numerous boutique fitness studios and wellness spaces like Othership.
But across America, Crunch Fitness is exemplifying the boom of big-box gyms taking leasing space. The high-value, low-price (HVLP) gym giant boosted its leasing activity nearly 50% year-over-year and added 91 locations in 2025, according to data from CoStar.
Last year, the HVLP operator signed an estimated 4.27 million square feet of space, with 3.19 million square feet in domestic leases alone. In 2026, the brand is hoping to outdo those numbers by opening roughly 100 gyms worldwide this year.
