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    Equinox Comes To H-Town

    Equinox touches down in H-Town promising a different exercise experience

    Clifford Pugh
    Dec 3, 2015 | 4:03 pm

    At long last, Equinox has come to Houston. The New York-based fitness chain with a cheeky attitude opened at River Oaks District Thursday, promising a health club — don't call it a gym — like the Bayou City has never seen before.

    "I think this is where the party is going to be happening in Houston," said Sarah Robb O'Hagan, the president of Equinox Holdings, the company that owns the Equinox fitness clubs, Pure Yoga studios and cycling chain Soul Cycle. "I think it's going to be a high energy vibe."

    That sounds like a tall order, but the pre-sale phase at the new Houston club has been the most successful in company history, said O'Hagan.

    New members will find such amenities as marble dressing rooms laden with Kiehl's products, five different fitness studios, including a yoga studio for both hot and regular yoga, a stadium-seating cycling studio and a Barre studio (only the second such designated one among the chain's 77 locations), a spa with four large massage rooms, a clothing store, a monitored kid's room and Flow juice bar. Most workout areas have floor-to-ceiling windows with lots of natural light.

    Social media mania

    One wall of a large lounge area is dominated by a computer screen showing class times and other exercise information. In the last three years, O'Hagan has beefed up the club's social media presence with an app that allows gymgoers to book classes and monitor their workouts and a 24-hour-a-day social media monitoring center that addresses complaints in real time. (She urges employees to individually use social media and says the number of Twitter followers can factor into hiring because it shows that person is a "thought leader.")

    "I don't know of any other gyms out there that have the kind of technologies we have; we're really looking at every aspect of your life — your nutrition, your sleep, your exercise — everything you're doing to help you manage it in a holistic way," O'Hagan said. "I think of it as more of an experience than a gym."

    The hip health club chain has been scouting out Houston for several years but waited to find the right location, O'Hagan said. "If it means we have to wait a few extra years to get it absolutely bang on, we will do that," said the New Zealand native. "It's a jackpot location without a doubt. It was worth waiting for."

    Unlike some gyms that hope to attract clients who won't use the facilities that much, Equinox aims for high-performance exercisers with a cheeky ad campaign, "Equinox Made Me Do It."

    "We like to be provocative. And we like to get people thinking," O'Hagan said. "They come away from Equinox with these amazing physical, mental, emotional, strong bodies and they're like, 'I'm just going to get into a little bit of mischief. I'm a little bit more provoked because I have that confidence.' We like to play on that. It's an attitude."

    O'Hagan believes the strategy works, as the average Equinox member comes in four times a week. "That's not typical for a gym. They're really into it. Our high performance consumer should feel like, 'Everyone around me is kind of pushing me a little bit.' That's the energy we try to create, for sure."

    Classes galore

    The Houston location is touting a host of classes (as many as 13 a day) including The Pursuit by Equinox, where bikers compete in a "big video game" on the board in front of them, Precision Running classes featuring interval training on a treadmill, Metcon3 for high-metabolic conditioning, and an enticing class that sounds like a Cosmo magazine story: Best Butt Ever.

    An Equinox membership costs $149 a month with no membership fee (through December 22); to use every club in the Equinox network, the rate is $230 a month. While it's significantly higher than many Houston gyms, O'Hagan finds that clients of all income levels feel it's worth it.

    "For those young up-and-coming people, it's the one place you can network with those executives. We see that a lot in research," she said. "I love it because in the end what unifies everyone is a real passion for fitness — and that's what's cool.

    "A lot of it comes down to that. You walk in and, if you're really into fitness, you go, 'This is my tribe and this is where I belong.' And that's a really nice feeling."

    General manager Christopher Grys, with the help of Houston City Council member David Robinson, cuts the ribbon to officially open the Equinox River Oaks club.

    Opening of Equinox at River Oaks District
      
    Photo by Priscilla Dickson
    General manager Christopher Grys, with the help of Houston City Council member David Robinson, cuts the ribbon to officially open the Equinox River Oaks club.
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    children don't come cheap

    This is how much the cost to raise a child in Houston increased in one year

    Amber Heckler
    Jun 23, 2025 | 11:38 am
    Family, raising a child
    Photo by Jimmy Dean on Unsplash
    It costs more than $24,000 to raise a child in the Austin area in 2025.

    A new national study has revealed it now costs $472 more to raise a child in the Houston area than it did last year.

    SmartAsset's report "Cost of Raising a Child in Major U.S. Metros – 2025 Study" compared data from MIT's Living Wage Calculator to determine the annual costs for raising a child in 2024 and 2025 across the 48 biggest metropolitan areas in the U.S. Factors that contributed to each metro's total included the cost for childcare, additional housing costs, food, transportation, medical costs, and "other necessities."

    In 2025, it will cost $21,868 annually to raise a child in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlandsregion, the report found. That amount has risen 2.21 percent since 2024, when childrearing in the Houston area cost $21,396 a year.

    Houston only has the third-highest costs for raising a child out of the four biggest Texas metros, and even though that cost has increased slightly in the last year, it's still on the low end nationally. SmartAsset said Houston is the 8th most affordable U.S. city, ranking 41st (out of 48) in the overall ranking of metros where the cost of raising a child is the highest.

    "The cost of raising a child can change quickly, making it important for budding families to keep an eye on trends in their locale," the report said. "Between 2024 and 2025 alone, the average projected annual cost of raising a small child changed by a range of -15 percent to +22 percent, depending on the metro area."

    Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Massachusetts led the nation with the highest annual cost for raising a child, totaling more than $39,000, up from $37,758 in 2024.

    Costs for raising a child in other Texas metros
    Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos is – unsurprisingly – the most expensive Texas metro for raising a child, with costs surging nearly eight percent from 2024. It now costs $24,188 to raise a child in the Austin area, compared to $22,406 the year before.

    There's better news for families in San Antonio. The San Antonio-New Braunfels area clocks in as the fifth most affordable U.S. metro in the study. In 2024, it cost $21,014 to raise a child in the Alamo City, but in 2025, it costs 0.33 percent less, at $20,945.

    This is how much it costs to raise a child in San Antonio, according to SmartAsset:

    • Cost of childcare: $9,123
    • Housing costs: $3,232
    • Food costs: $1,644
    • Medical costs: $2,590
    • Transportation costs: $3,090
    • Civic costs: $474
    • Other costs: $791

    Raising a child in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington now costs $22,337 per year, which is only $411 more than it did in 2024.

    childcare costsreportssmartassetfamilieshoustonthe woodlandspasadena
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