Home Fitness retailer to invade Nebraska

[Coyote]

Retailer hopes Nebraska a good fit

2nd Wind Exercise Equipment, a national chain that calls itself the Midwest's largest retailer of home fitness equipment, will open six stores in Nebraska.

The first, with 6,000 square feet, will open Saturday at 2935 N. 27th St. in Lincoln, Dick Enrico, founder and chief executive officer, said in a phone interview from St. Louis Park, Minn.

The first Omaha store, in an 8,000-square-foot space at 2731 S. 140th St., is scheduled to open at the end of September.

Three more locations are set to open in October. They are:

A 4,500-square-foot store at 7010 Dodge St. in the former Wherehouse Music building. Wherehouse closed in February 2003 when its parent company filed for bankruptcy.

A 5,000-square-foot store at the Shoppes at Grayhawk - southwest of 144th Street and West Maple Road.

A 5,000-square-foot location in Lincoln's South Ridge Village.

The sixth store, a 3,000-square-foot space at the new Tivoli project at 175th Street and West Center Road, is expected to open in early spring 2005.

Enrico said 2nd Wind had considered building in Nebraska - which he called a "great retail market" and "health-oriented" - for several years.

The six stores each will employ 30 full-time sales and service people.

Enrico said he doesn't consider sporting goods retailers such as Sports Authority, Dick's Sporting Goods Store and Scheels All Sports as competition because they carry apparel and accessories.

"We sell high-end equipment that is not found in sporting goods or department stores," he said. The equipment includes stationary bikes, treadmills and home gyms.

Stores such as Body Basics, Push Pedal Pull and Priority One Fitness also carry that kind of equipment.

Enrico said he called the business 2nd Wind because when he started the company he could get only used fitness equipment to sell. He launched the business in 1992, renting and selling used exercise equipment that he found through newspaper classified advertisements.

Used equipment now represents only a small portion of the business, he said.

[Brad]

I have seen a lot of advertisements for this company. They all have been on the wall above the urnals in bars.