A massive new fitness complex is set to open in southwest Las Vegas this December, bringing pickleball courts, three swimming pools and a bistro to a 15-acre site across from IKEA. Life Time Durango will span 128,000 square feet at 8555 West Sunset Road, marking the company's third athletic country club in the Las Vegas area and its 200th location nationwide.
According to Life Time, the club is arriving in December 2026 and joins existing locations in Summerlin and Green Valley. The company describes the new club as a full-scale athletic country club experience, and it has opened a waitlist for prospective members, warning that availability is limited. Membership pricing had not been released as of the company's August announcement, according to Life Time's Experience Life publication.
What's Inside the 128,000-Square-Foot Club
The amenity list is extensive. Per the same Experience Life report, the club will feature a six-lane lap pool, a six-lane lesson pool and a leisure pool indoors, along with six indoor pickleball courts and an accompanying pickleball lounge. A Kids Academy will serve children ages 3 months to 11 years old, the company says.
Outdoors, members can expect a leisure pool, a six-lane pool, waterslides, 12 cabanas and a bistro, the article notes. The club will also include a LifeCafe, bar space, a LifeSpa, coworking facilities and locker rooms equipped with hydrotherapy features, according to a separate Experience Life walkthrough of the property.
A Site With a Troubled Past
The Durango location isn't Life Time's first attempt to build in the area. As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Life Time purchased the site — the former Sullivan Square project — for $14 million in 2019, a transaction also confirmed by the Review-Journal at the time. Clark County approved plans for a three-story Life Time health club on the parcel in early 2020, the newspaper reported.
The Review-Journal's Eli Segall notes that Life Time broke ground on the southwest Las Vegas project in 2025, years after the county's approval. The paper reports that company founder Bahram Akradi attributed the delay to Life Time managing its balance sheet through COVID-19 disruptions, and that the company more broadly slowed development and focused on its finances during the pandemic.
The Site's Earlier Plans
Long before Life Time entered the picture, the site was supposed to house Sullivan Square, an ambitious high-rise project designed to include housing, retail, office space, bike lanes, art fairs and even a dog park, per the Review-Journal's reporting. Developers held a ceremonial groundbreaking in 2007 that included the launch of eight hot-air balloons, and drilling and blasting began that same year, the paper reports. But the project never materialized — according to a former listing broker cited by the Review-Journal, excavation reached a depth of around 30 feet before work stalled, leaving a hole that sat for years before Life Time's purchase.
Why Life Time Is Betting Big Right Now
The Las Vegas expansion comes as Life Time posts strong financial results. The company reported $373.7 million in net income for 2025, according to Life Time's own earnings release, which also states the company opened 10 new centers during the year and operated 189 total locations as of December 31, 2025. Life Time said it expects to add nearly as much new square footage in 2026 as it opened during the previous two years combined, per the same release.
A Wider Expansion Pipeline
Durango is part of a broader development push: in a November 2025 results release, Life Time said nearly all of its planned 12 to 14 new clubs for the following year were already under construction.
The broader fitness industry has also been recovering. The Review-Journal cites the Health & Fitness Association in reporting that roughly 6,800 U.S. health clubs permanently closed and $20.4 billion in revenue was lost by the end of 2020. That same trade group projects Americans will spend $60 billion in 2026 on health and fitness goals, and the newspaper notes that U.S. commercial fitness locations ended 2025 with record fourth-quarter foot traffic on par with pre-pandemic levels.
Other Gyms Are Expanding Too
Life Time isn't the only operator chasing Las Vegas fitness demand. The Review-Journal reports that Fit Club Las Vegas recently opened a location in a former Regal movie theater on Eastern Avenue at Pebble Road, north of the 215 Beltway, occupying about 7,800 square feet of the old theater's main lobby. Fit Club co-owner Ryan Diaz told the paper the build-out cost a little over $2 million, and the outlet describes the facility as a private, luxury workout spot. Extra Space Storage also opened a 112,000-square-foot facility with 1,080 units in the same former Regal building this past September, the paper notes.
