Owasso Women to Have New Fitness, Workout Options

A new fitness center in a new Owasso development promises a mixture of sweat and elegance when it opens next month near the increasingly fast-paced junction at U.S. 169 and 96th Street North.

Fit for Her will be on the third floor of the City Center building, formerly known as the Waterford Plaza development.

Owner Jason Gittelman said the fitness center, which will be accessible every day and around the clock, fills a need for consumers in the Owasso area. His fiancee, Adana Mann, will manage it and work there as a personal trainer.

“It has a spa feeling. It’s upscale, yet affordable, exactly what we were looking for,” he said.

The couple attended a fitness exposition to learn about franchise operations that they could work with. They found Fit for Her and started work to bring it to their hometown.

Mann said she believes in the approach to fitness at Fit for Her.

The franchise offers weight training using weights instead of hydraulic equipment and separates weight and circuit training sessions from cardiovascular workouts. The business will offer aerobics classes, Pilates, kickboxing and other disciplines in the aerobics room.

“I’ve tried other places, and I just wasn’t getting what I wanted. I couldn’t get my heart rate up,” she said.

For Mann, Fit For Her pushes up the deadline for a longtime goal.

For the past 11 years, Mann has kept her professional focus on early childhood development, first as a teacher and currently as assistant director of the University of Tulsa’s Child Development Center.

“When my son is in kindergarten next year, I had planned to get into personal training. … I’d just planned to work in someone else’s gym, but now I’m (going to be) working in my own,” she said.

She has always enjoyed exercising and looks forward to helping other women meet their fitness goals.

“I have a lot of friends who are overweight, and I just want to encourage them to join a gym and work out with them,” Mann said.

For mothers, the facility will have a children’s playroom monitored by video equipment. Parents can watch their children in the playroom or favorite TV shows on the televisions in front of exercise equipment. The month-to-month fee covers access to playrooms, exercise equipment, classes, tanning and massage.

Fit for Her in Owasso is scheduled to open in February, Gittelman said.

“There’s already quite a bit of anticipation. I think it will go well. It fills a market that hasn’t been filled anywhere. There are co-ed gyms, but nothing just for ladies. I think it’s going to do well and we’re going to be very successful,” he said.

Brian Doyle, project manager for 96th & 129th, L.L.C., the site’s developer, said several tenants have been lined up to open in the City Center building, a total of nearly 50,000 square feet, but space is still available.

A restaurant specializing in chicken wings and a dry cleaner business are set to move into the smaller of the two structures at City Center. The larger structure will house the 3 Tomatoes & a Mozzarella Tuscan bistro (a franchise started in Arizona), an insurance business, a buy-and-trade type store for movies and video games, U.S. Cellular, and a salon and Merle Norman cosmetics shop, Doyle said.

Construction of City Center, a three-floor development, began in March and is expected to be complete in February, Doyle said.

Gittelman said he is looking forward to opening.

“To me, it seemed like a really neat gift to give to Adana. It’ll give her a job she enjoys, it’ll be good for the community and, of course, we want to be successful,” Gittelman said.

For Mann, it is about gaining knowledge as well as losing inches.

“I want to educate them. I don’t think about it as just fitness,” Mann said.

Fit For Her will be in the new City Center development, 9500 N. 129th East Ave. It is scheduled to open in February. For more information, call 376-2828.