(Bloomberg) -- The man once referred to as Los Angeles’ Nightclub King is making a big bet on the wellness industry.
Sam Nazarian, who made his name in hospitality with bars and clubs in Los Angeles and buzzy hotels such as the Delano, Mondrian and SLS is creating a new wellness-focused collection of hotels, residences and preventive medicine centers called the Estate.
The project is co-founded with motivational speaker and author Tony Robbins, with investors and partners in musician Marc Anthony and Richard Attias, chief executive officer of the Future Investment Initiative Institute, a nonprofit run by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
The Estate is being developed by Nazarian’s SBE Entertainment Group. It comes four years after he sold the remaining 50% of his hotel businesses to French hospitality giant Accor SA in a cash-and-asset-swap deal that valued the business lines at $850 million.
There are plans for 15 hotels and residences and 10 longevity centers by 2030, with the first center set to open late next year at Reuben Brothers Ltd.’s Century Plaza in Los Angeles, taking up nearly 13,000 square feet of commercial real estate. Diagnostics will come from Fountain Life LLC, a company founded in 2019, also backed by Robbins.
Hotels and residences in St. Kitts, northern Italy, Switzerland and the UK countryside are slated for 2026. Nazarian says it will be the biggest network of luxury properties committed to preventive medicine, more than double the properties the Well has announced in its pipeline.
The hotel in St. Kitts will be on the gently sloping northern part of the island, with 100 suites and 90 residential units, four restaurants, an 18-hole golf course and a helipad. There will also be a 50,000-square-foot preventive medicine center and anti-aging medical spa on the grounds.
The Estate is the latest entrant in the lucrative and growing wellness space—an estimated $5.6 trillion industry. So-called healthspan is an increasingly vital part, in which a host of startups promise a longer, better life, for a price. Robbins and Nazarian will hold an event on Wednesday in Miami to announce the brand and will go to meet with private and institutional investors over the next twelve months.
“Our top trend for 2024 is the astounding speed in which medicine is rewriting the wellness market,” says Beth McGroarty, research director at the Global Wellness Institute. “A new kind of pricey, concierge preventative medicine is emerging fast. New medical-wellness longevity and prevention clinics are becoming the most powerful, fastest-growing new business genre.”
The Estate is launching at a time when luxury hotels are increasingly adding biohacking technology to their offerings. When the Emory opened in London this year, it dedicated four floors and 21,500 square feet of space to wellness club Surrenne, which includes partnerships with doctors. Continuum in New York has a 25,000-square-foot gym facility that opened in May and offers a wide range of tests including blood panels for $10,000 a month.
McGroarty says that new and expanding medical-wellness resorts and longevity clinics are offering full menus of advanced diagnostic testing (biomarker, genetic, hormonal, full-body MRI exams) to identify issues before they become a problem.
This is essentially what’s on offer at the Estate’s urban centers. Its standalone Century City longevity center will cost roughly $35,000 a year for a membership that will include testing such as full-body MRIs, heart and lung CT scans, DEXA scans to look at bone density and telehealth consultations with doctors.
“Before you even head to a hotel, you can have your bloodwork or MRI done in an urban center done by us—so you know what to focus on during your stay,” says Nazarian, speaking exclusively to Bloomberg about the Estate. “We think the consumer is going to demand that brands foundationally have a component of not just wellness but preventive medicine, so you can learn more about your health in a luxury environment.”
Nazarian stresses that he’s not building medical hotels; he’s building luxury hotels with a functional preventive medical component to them. He’s bringing in names like Andalusian celebrity chef Dani Garcia of Bibo to create food and drink menus—he wants guests to be able to enjoy themselves and not feel restricted. “You can have an amazing cocktail, but in the meantime get that MRI you’ve been wanting to get, or get spa treatments with Clinique La Prairie when you’re here,” he says.
He mentions luxury hospitality brands such as Aman, Auberge and One&Only as potential competitors. Nazarian declines to give a room rate but says it will be competitive with top-tier hotels, many of which charge more than $1,000 a night at a starting rate.
“Sam’s at a stage of life now at 49 where he doesn’t just go party anymore. He knows today’s luxury is lifestyle—it’s longevity, it’s health, it’s vitality, it’s strength,” says Robbins. Due to the pandemic, he continues, people are more health-conscious than ever and want actionable information about their health markers and more information about how they can live longer, healthier lives.
Nazarian says he’s seen this for himself, when he went to try Fountain Life’s diagnostics in October 2023 while working to create the Estate with Robbins. He says doctors found an aneurysm. “It required a four-hour surgery to remove, but it saved my life,” he says.
And although nobody wants to discover a medical ailment, Nazarian is betting many will pay for the peace of mind to find out while enjoying a wellness-focused luxury hotel stay along the way. “When I started, I was 25 and my customers were my age or a bit younger.” he says. “Now that consumer is my age, and they’ve grown up with us. They’re very interested in this.”
(Updates development company in 4th paragraph.)
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