Little Gym Opens Franchise In Surprise

The Little Gym, a gymnastics and motor-skills-building center for children, is expanding in the West Valley.

The Scottsdale-based company, with 264 branches worldwide, recently opened an outlet in Surprise. It is its 10th Valley location and its second in the West Valley.

With a high concentration of gyms in the East Valley, the company is now pushing to saturate the West Valley, said Ruk Adams, senior vice president of Little Gym. advertisement A Litchfield Park franchise is to open this month, and two locations in Buckeye should open within the next three years, he said. Inside the brightly colored, mat-lined gym, parents help their kids walk across balance beams and hoist them to grab uneven bars during a parent/child class for kids ranging from 10 months to 3 years old. The centers have earned a national reputation for allowing children independence while focusing on physical activity and social networking.

For some West Valley residents, the wait for a branch had been long.

Wickenburg resident Holly Heinrich said she remembers seeing ads for the Little Gym three years ago while watching Sesame Street with her daughter, Helen Marie, then a baby. Heinrich said she wanted to enroll her daughter in classes but decided against driving 90 minutes round-trip to the gym's only West Valley location near Glendale's Arrowhead Towne Center. When the Surprise location opened Dec. 11, she did not mind making the 40-minute trek. Others have done the same. About 125 children have enrolled in classes at the Surprise branch since it opened.

Heinrich said she appreciates the gym's non-competitive athletics. Her daughter also is enrolled in ballet and tap dancing classes, which she said are strict.

"Someone told us, 'If you want her to become a serious dancer, the Little Gym is not what you want,' " she said. "And I'm thinking, 'She's only 4 years old. I just want her to learn.' " The company is timing its push for more West Valley branches.

"We're really dependent on 0- to 6-year-olds," Adams said.

The chain uses the software program Buxton to identify when a city has about 10,000 kids younger than 6 living within a 12-mile radius. After Glendale, Surprise was the next city whose demand was able to meet those criteria.

Surprise franchise owner Deanna Santosusso was excited to move forward with the opening. The mother of a 5-year-old and a former student of the School of American Ballet in New York City, she left her previous job in property management.

She said opening the Little Gym gave her the opportunity to combine her skills as a mother, dancer and businesswoman.

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