Pure Fitness and Pure Yoga’s Suntec branches to close Oct 8 due to insufficient members

PURE Fitness and Pure Yoga’s branches at Suntec City will be shutting their doors on Oct 8 due to insufficient members, adding to a string of closures in Singapore’s gym industry.

Members were informed of the closure via e-mail on Wednesday (Sep 27), and answers to expected questions were uploaded on the group’s website.

Pure Group said membership acquisitions at Suntec City “proved challenging” in spite of “multiple efforts and campaigns to drive awareness and customer engagement”.

“We were unable to achieve a sustainable number to continue operations,” it said. “We will reallocate our resources and staff to our other clubs at Asia Square and Ngee Ann City instead.” Both locations have Pure Fitness and Pure Yoga outlets.

The Hong-Kong headquartered group said it is not exiting from Singapore, and will also be looking for expansion opportunities once it has “stabilised the changes from this closure”.

Affected Suntec City members will receive a separate e-mail on the revision of their membership access. They can continue their membership at Pure’s other locations in Singapore.

Refunds will not be given to members who wish to terminate their membership on the basis that they find the change in location “inconvenient”, the group said.

The Suntec City closure is Pure Group’s third over the past 20 months. Pure Yoga Republic Plaza shut in November 2022, while Pure Fitness Ocean Financial Centre shut in March 2022.

In response to queries from The Business Times (BT), the group said it “conducted in-depth assessments of (its) entire club network in light of recent changes in the wellness industry”.

In view of the “evolving business landscape in Singapore”, the group is reallocating resources “to optimise (its) offerings”. The Suntec City branches have been around since 2018 and 2019.

Pure has built a reputation in Singapore as a premium big box gym chain. A 12-month membership package with unlimited access to all Pure Fitness and Pure Yoga outlets begins at S$215 a month.

A member, who declined to be named, told BT he had just renewed his Pure membership in June, paying S$4,680 upfront for a 24-month all-access package.

“We all signed (our memberships) on the promise that we would have access to three locations’ worth of gyms,” he said. “It’s a breach of contract on their end, because I paid for six (outlets) and now two have been taken away.”

He said he heard rumours in July that the Suntec City branches were going to shut. “At the same time, (Pure) was doing this massive push to sign up new members at Suntec City,” he added.

He asked a company representative over social media about the rumours in September, but was told the news “was being circulated without basis”.

“We already kind of knew that this was going to happen, but I had hoped they would give us adequate notice to process the whole thing.”

Pure’s Suntec City branches are the latest gyms to close in Singapore. In August, personal training gym Fenix Fitness was placed under provisional liquidation, with S$5 million owed to 400 creditors. Earlier in May, UFC Gym – the franchise of US-based Ultimate Fighting Championship – and boutique fitness studio Haus Athletics abruptly shut their doors.