Life Time and Midas Hospitality are betting big on Richmond Heights, unveiling plans for a seven-story Life Time Living community at the Boulevard South site that would fuse roughly 263 apartment homes with a full-scale Life Time athletic club. The wellness-focused concept is pitched as a one-stop hub where housing, retail and fitness all share the same address, potentially giving a long-stalled stretch of Brentwood Boulevard the kind of jolt city leaders have been waiting on. Early renderings lean into rooftop hangout space, direct club access for residents and street-level retail meant to keep people walking the corridor instead of just driving through it.
Project details
According to CNR Magazine, the proposal stacks about 263 apartment residences above a roughly 110,000-square-foot Life Time athletic club, with approximately 6,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space along the Boulevard. The mixed-use building is described as seven stories tall, with a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom layouts. Residents would have direct access to the club, so workouts, recovery sessions and laps in the pool are all designed to be an elevator ride away.
Amenities and scale
Industry reports say the project is planned with the kind of amenities that define the Life Time Living brand, rather than a basic apartment gym. REBusinessOnline notes that plans call for an expansive rooftop pool and outdoor deck, dedicated training and recovery spaces, group fitness studios and personal coaching. Developers are positioning this rooftop and wellness programming as the marquee attraction that sets the property apart from more conventional suburban apartment complexes.
Who’s behind the deal
Midas Hospitality is listed as the local development partner and is framing the plan as an approximately $200 million investment to land Life Time Living at The Boulevard. In its own announcement, Midas Hospitality pitches the concept as a marriage of luxury apartment living with a fully integrated Life Time athletic country club and on-site resident wellness services. In other words, the gym membership is baked into the lifestyle the project is selling.
Why Richmond Heights is watching
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has openly wondered whether a high-profile partner like Life Time might serve as what it called “a lifeline for Richmond Heights development,” given the corridor’s long history of stalled or half-finished projects. Coverage in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch frames the Life Time Living plan as a potential turning point for Boulevard South, the kind of anchor project that could finally give other investors the confidence to follow.
How this fits into broader change
The timing lines up with other efforts along the Galleria corridor to rethink aging retail space, including moves to convert large department-store boxes into more experiential uses aimed at drawing people in for something beyond traditional shopping. Recent work inside the former Nordstrom building is a case in point. construction inside the former Nordstrom and the mall’s pivot toward activity-oriented tenants could end up pairing neatly with a wellness-anchored residential tower and club next door, if both efforts come together as planned.
What’s next
For now, the project remains in the proposal stage. Developers still need to secure local approvals, line up financing and lock in a construction schedule before any cranes show up on Brentwood Boulevard. The next checkpoints will come through planning reviews and permit filings, and the partners have not set a firm start or opening date, according to REJournals.
If it moves forward, the Life Time Living development would drop hundreds of new housing units and a major fitness destination into one of the region’s busiest suburban nodes. That kind of density has the potential to reshape daily foot traffic for nearby restaurants and retailers and to test whether the Galleria corridor can truly support more high-end, experience-driven projects. Neighbors and city officials will be watching the inevitable traffic studies, financing details and planning-board debates as this proposal makes its way through the approval pipeline.
