Springs company expanding from coast to coast

Phenix Salon Suites is about to take off — in a big way.

The Colorado Springs-based company provides upscale private suites functioning as fully equipped minisalons. Stylists, nail technicians and other salon professionals rent the suites and operate as independent businesses.

Jason Rivera and his wife, Gina, opened the first Phenix Salon Suites on the north side of the Springs in 2007. They’ve opened two more since — and a fourth, on the east side of the city at Powers and Stetson Hills boulevards, is slated to open by year’s end.

But the enterprise is moving far beyond a home-grown one. The company launched a franchising program more than a year ago that’s about to bear fruit in several states: About two-dozen franchise locations are expected to be open by the second quarter of next year.

And beyond corporate and franchise locations, there’s a third growth track: “holding company” stores, which involve partners investing in the concept but not taking a hands-on role like franchisees. Holding company stores are in the works in central Florida and southern California; one Florida store, in the town of Altamonte Springs, has already opened.

All together, between the three strategies, more than 100 locations are in development.
“In this economic environment, it’s amazing,” Jason Rivera said. “It just shows you that this industry, the salon industry, is very recession resistant.”

Jason Rivera sold his marketing company, J.C. & Associates, in late 2009 to focus on the new enterprise. Gina Rivera is a stylist who comes from a long line of hairdressers; Phenix is the name of the couple’s first son. Their business is hailed as one of 2011’s “Brave New Franchises” in the September issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

“We’re a very hands-on franchisor,” Jason Rivera said. The company has people in several posts — including vice presidents of real estate, construction and franchising — that help guide the franchisee.

“When you come in and link up with us as a company,” Rivera said, “we basically hold your hand through the entire process.”

Robert Aertker, a principal with Landmark Commercial Group in Colorado Springs, is the vice president of real estate for Phenix Salon Suites. He counsels franchisees on the types of property to look for and will tour the market with them.

“It makes them feel good,” he said. “Real estate can be scary to them.”

Aertker was so taken by the Phenix concept that he’s one of the partners in the holding company developing stores in southern California.

“I doubt that we’ll stay just in southern California,” he said.

Phenix Salon Suites is also developing a product line that Jason Rivera said could launch by the end of the first quarter of next year.

“We’re finalizing packaging right now,” he said. Development of the products, he said, has involved a lot of research and back and forth.

“To get my wife’s family to agree on anything — you’re talking about a lot of Italian hairdressers — is almost an act of God in itself,” he said.