Parmasters KW On The Web

As some of you may have noticed, we’ve recently launched our web pages / website. You can Parmasters Kitchener-Waterloo here. As with all Parmasters Centers, our web pages are accessed via the main Parmasters Golf Training Centers site.

Our web pages provide a wealth of information about our site and also allow you to sign up for a membership giveaway and to simply join our mailing list to learn more about membership and other opportunities as they arise. You can sign up here.

We will start selling memberships in the coming months. Residents of Waterloo Region will hear plenty from us as our marketing efforts begin.

This also marks a transition in this blog. Up until now, almost all readers have been friends and family, people that I’ve spoken to personally regarding our Parmasters Center. Now that our web pages are live, and we’re getting some media exposure, readers of this blog will include future members and clients that I have not yet met. I have not yet decided whether this might alter my musings and writings.

Our press release, issued yesterday, was picked up by the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. Here’s a link to the article, and the full text, below.

CORE SCORE

Parmasters 'health club for golfers' comes to Market Square in downtown Kitchener this winter targeting those duffers without regular access to training facilities or coaches

MICHAEL HAMMOND

KITCHENER (Jul 4, 2007)
A "health club for golfers" is set to open in the Market Square in downtown Kitchener, adding fuel to hopes of a revival in the city's struggling core.

Stephen Southern, president of Parmasters Southern Ontario, said he hopes to open his golf training centre in the mall this winter.

"We describe it as a health club for golfers," he said.

The Parmasters chain, based in Memphis, Tenn., currently has facilities in Memphis and Guangzhou, China. It plans to open dozens of similar golf training centres around the world, including 27 in Canada.

The Kitchener centre will occupy 15,000 square feet of space in the Market Square's main floor retail concourse, although a specific location has yet to be confirmed. It will be the first Parmasters location in Ontario.

Southern, who holds the Parmasters franchise rights in southern Ontario, said he wants to offer a year-round attraction where the average golfer can work on his or her game.

"Our studies show there are about 70,000 golfers in the region," he said. "That's an absolutely prime market. There aren't many places for public golfers to practise their game."

Linda Stewart, executive director of the Kitchener Downtown Business Association, said the "out-of-the-ordinary" attraction represents a much-needed endorsement for the core.

"I'm excited they picked Kitchener's downtown because it speaks to the fact that we've got some great developments going on here," she said. "This type of business is going to attract different people to the core."

John Vickery, manager of leasing for Cora Group, which owns Market Square, said the golfing attraction will bring new momentum to the south end of the downtown.

"We've tried a couple of strategies to bring in new retail without much success," he said. "We hope this will attract a whole new audience to Market Square."

Vickery said his group possibly will shift several stores around in the mall to make way for Parmasters.

Both Cora and the Kitchener Market have had trouble retaining tenants, Vickery said. "I think that's indicative of how difficult it is leasing retail space in the downtown."

The golf centre will include five or six golf simulators, a 4,000-square-foot putting green, a sand trap practice area and an automated driving range simulator that places a ball on a tee every few seconds.

The attraction will employ 15 to 20 people. Southern hopes to begin selling memberships, which will start at $39 a month, later this summer or in the fall.

The centre will be open to the public as well. The facility will also have a pro shop, fitness area and cafe.

Southern, a self-described serial entrepreneur who has worked for several technology startups including SlipStream Data in Waterloo, is targeting golfers who don't belong to golf clubs and don't have access to training facilities or golf coaches.

He said he plans to eventually open Parmasters locations in Cambridge, London, Windsor and Chatham-Kent.

Besides Market Square's central location, Southern said there were several key factors that led him to locate the centre in downtown Kitchener.

More than 2,500 professionals work within a five-minute walk of Market Square, at the corner of King and Frederick streets. There also will be hundreds of affluent condominium owners in the downtown in the coming years at the Kaufman Lofts, Eatons Lofts and in the proposed Centre Block development, he said.