Equinox Gym's foray into yoga only, customer-service oriented 20,000 sq ft yoga palace complete with mat wipe downs between classes will open next week in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
If this location goes well, there will be many more locations of Pure Yoga, a business that originated in Hong Kong where it has done extraordinarily well.
You can bet that this is the beginning of something big. Their tag line is, "Many Practices, One Intention." Twenty-one different styles under one roof.
Remember when Yoga Works chain opened in 2005? You don't, right, because it seems that the Yoga Works franchise has always been around. That's how powerful they are. Changing the face of yoga.
For background on the how financing entered the yoga free market, read the story of Yoga Works in the NYTimes small business section, and in Yoga Journal, 2005.