One-stop 'wellness center' opens

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Spa Fitness Center owner Ken Gibson, left, and his son Nainoa, far right, have teamed up with Ampy Santiago and her daughter Nicole and opened Ampy's A Day Spa in conjunction with Spa Fitness Center at Pearl City. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Some 20 years later, Santiago and her mother and Gibson and his father have merged their spa and exercise businesses to create what they say is a first in Hawai'i — the only place that combines facials, massages, workout equipment and nutritional services.

"It's a total wellness center in one stop," Ken Gibson said yesterday, the first day that Ampy's A Day Spa was up and running inside his Spa Fitness Center.

Ampy's A Day Spa still operates out of its main location in the Ala Moana Building. But it now has two new massage and treatment rooms just inside the entrance to the four-story, 18,000-square-foot Spa Fitness Center at the Times Square Shopping Center in Pearl City.

Bookings for the two massage and therapy rooms are filled, with 200 appointments over the next two weeks. About 40 percent of the business is for men, but both businesses say their customers are interested in crossing over to take advantage of the other's services.

Ampy's has a customer base of 13,000 people. Spa Fitness Center brings in 1,200 to 1,500 customers per day and 50 of them bought gift certificates before the new Ampy's A Day Spa opened yesterday.

Then about nine months ago, Nainoa went to a dentist in the Ala Moana Building and was drawn to the decor of Ampy's A Day Spa and its 11 massage rooms. He bought a gift certificate for his wife and booked a massage for himself.

When Nainoa later called Ampy's to talk to the owner, he was surprised to discover it was run by a mother-daughter team.

"I said, 'That's ironic because me and my dad own Spa Fitness Center,' " Nainoa said.

He and his father weren't convinced they could increase business for a gym by including facials, manicures and body treatments. Then they went to Ampy's A Day Spa together and saw two men getting pedicures.

"We said, 'We're expanding,' " Nainoa said. " 'Do you guys want to come along for the ride?' "

Although the Ala Moana Ampy's generates $1.5 million in annual revenue, Ampy said, there was no room to expand there.

So she and Nicole decided to invest $35,000 in construction material and beauty products to move into Spa Fitness Center. They also had to hire and train four new employees.

The combined businesses bring together the 33-year-old Ampy's A Day Spa and the Spa Fitness Center, which the Gibsons have owned for two years. They've since included a third nutrition operation run by the husband-wife team of Brian and Carmen Griffith.

Over the last three weeks, the Gibsons transformed 700 square feet of rather industrial-looking floor space into two air-conditioned massage and therapy rooms that feature peaceful scenes on the walls. They also built a reception area that serves as both Ampy's A Day Spa's business area and a softer entrance to their gym.

The two businesses' main clients have decidedly different tastes. "The women want different colors and have different ideas," Nainoa said. "Basically, they say, 'OK, 'Noa. Now go do it.' "

But so far everyone insists that the mother-daughter and father-son teams have gotten along. The main differences, the parents say, comes between them and their ambitious children.

"She drives me crazy — too active," Ampy said of Nicole, a 1995 Punahou School graduate who majored in international marketing at Georgetown University and minored in psychology and Japanese. "I want to retire. She wants to expand some more."

Told of her mother's comments, Nicole replied: "I do, I do. I make her crazy. I'm so demanding."

But everyone also agrees that both businesses bring a definite family feel to their new partnership.

"We grew up in the business," Nicole said of herself and Nainoa. "It's in the blood."