A fiery new owner at Global Fitness

Photo: Jennifer Zielinski

He's a philanthropist, an entrepreneur and now the new owner of Kelowna's Global Fitness Centre.

But former Dragon's Den panelist Brett Wilson is also a big fan of the Okanagan and what it has to offer.

"I have bought four or five fairly significant properties out here, one of them is the Global building, the Global business and the whole complex," he says.

Wilson who turned Rally Pointe in Calgary into North America's finest volleyball centre, saw serious potential in the aging Kelowna fitness centre.

"There is a big chunk of land in the back, and I like that as a long term investor, but when you look at a project as a 10 or 20 year prospective having some expansion land was kind of cool," Wilson explains.

"It's not criticizing the people who were here before, but I thought if we brought in new management and some capital that we could upgrade the whole facility."

However, Wilson had been watching Global Fitness Centre for some time as a small time partner in the company for the last seven years, and in 2012 he knew it was time to take over, and invested over $1M into renovations.

"I cut a deal to take all the other partners out and then I could accelerate the development or re-development of the program. That is why we have started spending some pretty serious money here."  

While some may be used to him haggling next to Kevin O'Leary, it appears this former Dragon is ready to take on something more serious … the bulge as he participated in Kelowna's largest fitness class on Monday night where over 500 participants showed up in the newly remodeled gym to work out.