AFP Completes Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey Renovation

November 1, 2007 - AFP recently completed the successful revamp of the Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey’s fitness center. The project was a part of the facility’s extensive $4-million renovation of its entire spa experience. Located just north of Los Angeles International Airport and just south of L.A.’s most popular northern beach cities – Venice Beach, Santa Monica and Malibu – Marina del Rey is a waterfront escape on the outskirts of the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. Herein lies the AAA Five Diamond Award-winning resort, The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey, an ideal ‘corporate-resort’ stopover destination for travelers crossing the Pacific in either direction. Advantage Fitness Products (AFP) was called upon for its full breadth of services to ensure that the fitness center component of this expansion came to fruition as smoothly as possible and realized Ritz-Carlton management’s specific goals and objectives.

There were several goals inherent to this project. First was a comprehensive upgrade to state-of-the-art exercise equipment, complete with modern entertainment features (e.g., personal viewing screens and iPod docking stations, etc.). Due to the significant number of professional and college athletes that frequently stay at the facility during road trip stops in Los Angeles, a second goal was to ensure that a variety of specific training categories were represented in the facility to accommodate the more-sophisticated training needs of these elite athletes. Yet another goal was to maximize the fitness center’s breathtaking view of the luxurious pool area and the Marina itself.

With the space constraints of the pre-existing fitness center location, accommodating the need for both basic and more-advanced training equipment was a challenge. To accomplish this, AFP was able to provide a tailored circuit of strength training equipment, and then integrate several key additions of multi-purpose functional training specialty pieces that served a variety of training functions without the need of multiple equipment units. This now will allow every demographic, from everyday travelers to elite professional athletes to meet their unique training needs.

The upgraded equipment and features have resulted in immediate revenue-generating benefits due to the facility’s now health club-level status. Upon its re-opening, the facility began receiving requests from local residents and outside neighbors to obtain membership to the fitness center for their own daily use. In addition to this unique development, the fitness center will play a key role in bringing customers back for repeat guest stays, driving an influx of revenue to the spa overall, and increasing personal training opportunities within the fitness center.