Clay goes to the spa!

Iatria's hands-on growth
Spa plots expansion as workers, kids alike seek relief from stress
Kim Nilsen
RALEIGH - Iatria Day Spa is massaging its business plan to clear the way for a major expansion.

The 50-employee company wants to import spa services from its north Raleigh locations to other areas of the Triangle.

President Erika Mangrum says Iatria could spawn one to two additional locations in 2005. On Oct. 13, Mangrum's lawyers staked out the business names Iatria Downtown Raleigh and Iatria Cary.

Mangrum says the search for spa space started about six months ago but has yet to result in any leases. "We feel like we're pretty close," she says.

Iatria's flagship Creedmoor Road location sees about 150 customers a day for primping and pampering that ranges from European facials to teeth whitening to foot reflexology. The client list includes pop singer Clay Aiken, who books time on the Iatria massage table when he's in town.

Its smaller spa at the Wakefield Crossing shopping center sees about 50 people a day. A typical client spends $100, Mangrum says, but services range from less than $20 to $375.

Mangrum says the north Raleigh locations might be too far a commute for some potential clients. She says the company has scouted for sites in Durham, Chapel Hill and the Research Triangle Park area. Expansion could come with managers from inside the company taking operator/part owner roles, she says. In October, she changed the Iatria Inc. name to HFM Spa Management.

Down the road, expansion rounds might come through alliances with chiropractors or plastic surgeons wanting to offer spa services, Mangrum says. She's also open to talking with spa veterans looking for an ownership stake or people with management experience hoping to segue into a new industry.

Some industry observers say rising stress levels and a spread of more affordable day spas combined to push the business into the mainstream this year. The industry rang up $5.6 billion in sales in 2003, says Melinda Minton, an author, consultant and the executive director of The Spa Association.

Spa offerings are on the rise in North Carolina. On Nov. 5, Synergy Spa will open at the Shoppes of Glenwood Village at Glenwood Avenue and Oberlin Road.

The number of licensed massage therapists and bodyworkers has climbed 386 percent since 1999 to some 5,077, according to the North Carolina Board of Massage and Bodywork Therapy.

Iatria's clients include teens sent by their parents to have the stress of exams melted away by a massage therapist. Iatria keeps open corporate accounts for more than a dozen large businesses that host meetings at the spa or send valued customers and employees in for pampering.

The demand for "medical spas" offering traditional and plastic surgery services has risen. North Raleigh's Blue Water Spa, the offspring of cosmetic surgeon Michael Law and his wife, spa veteran Kile Law, performed about 7,400 procedures in its first nine months in 2003.

Iatria leases space at its spas to plastic surgeon Adam Stein and in 2001 helped contractor Angela Baylis spin her chiropractic practice out as a separate business that rents space and the company name for her Iatria Health Center.

Demand at Iatria is up from a handful of clients a day in October 1999, when Mangrum left her job as a marketing executive with Bell & Howell to start her own company.