The Cooper Aerobics Center at Craig Ranch is a world-renowned medical/fitness/wellness center founded and operated by Kenneth Cooper, MD, the inventor of “aerobic exercise.” Completed in 2006, the center is a $15-million, world-class facility, merging the best thinking in sports performance, fitness, nutrition, mind/body wellness, and medicine. It boasts a full-size gymnasium, Olympic swimming pool, 42′ climbing wall, cafeteria and demonstration kitchen, sports medicine and women’s health physicians’ offices, pro shop, and child care. Outdoor facilities include separate quarter- and half-mile running tracks, tennis courts, and sand volleyball courts.

It was very important to the Cooper family and management that the new Cooper Aerobics Center at Craig Ranch recall the pastoral setting of the original facility in North Dallas. The design of the eight-acre site successfully mimics, in a condensed format, the outdoor ambience and amenities of the original 30-acre site.

The Cooper project exhibits a level of finish and design unusual in today’s budget-driven market. Extra design touches include 50′ ceilings in the main lobby, 42′ ceilings in the spa lobby, stained wood beams, natural stone walls, and a natural slate roof with copper gutters and downspouts. These all combine for a high-finish environment completed for only $200 per square foot.


Project category: New construction (completed June 2006)

Chief administrator: Jason Barth, General Manager, (214) 383-1007

Firm: Centerpoint Builders, (972) 220-0500

Design team: David Gunderson, Development Manager (Centerpoint Builders); Duncan Fulton, Architect of Record (Good, Fulton, and Farrell Architects); Fred Cauble, Design Architect (Cauble Hoskins & Loose); Walter Wilcox, Structural Engineer (L.A. Fuess Partners, Inc.); Daniel Thein, MEP Engineer (Purdy-McGuire, Inc.); Tom Braun, General Contractor (Verticon Construction)

Photography: Mark Olsen

Total building area (sq. ft.): 75,032

Construction cost/sq. ft.: $200

Total construction cost (excluding land): $15,000,000