About
Simon Jonid
Simon Jonid, is a qualified architect from
a local Sydney architecture school, the University
of New South Wales. Simon
obtained his Bachelor of Architecture with Honours and has built up an
impressive portfolio which resulted in him specialising in high quality
commercial, fitness centres, club hospitality and retail store design.
Started from humble
beginnings, as an Architectural Assistant in Federal Government, he
was involved in the design of well-known public buildings like Sydney Family
Law Courts in Goulburn Street
and Haymarket Commonwealth Offices and Commonwealth Bank Chamber in Martin
Place. He then moved between few small firms
that specialised in design of RSL Clubs in country New
South Wales, nursing homes, hospitals and small
residential work. It seems that by chance, his major project roles have always
been in the design of public buildings.
This was further developed, when Simon joined a
joint venture firm Cox-Hillier, a joint venture firm of Cox Architects
office in Sydney and Hillier Architects from New Jersey USA. Simon was 1 of 3
original Australian architects employed by Phillip Cox to commence and start
the design of the Sydney Harbour Casino, started from the Temporary
Casino design. He then joined a large team of 50 Australian and 50 American
architects to complete the design of Sydney Star City Casino. In the
casino project, Simon developed a strong affinity of design public spaces
especially in areas that he was put under charge which was in the Public Gaming
areas.
To further his career path, Simon decided to take a
residential turn of experience and joined Mirvac Limited to obtain
luxury design skills for exclusive apartments and hotels such as Quay Grand
Circular Quay, Quay West Melbourne and Marriot Hotels Sydney.
After 3 years with Mirvac, Simon changed his career
path and joined as an architect in a newly founded and then unknown firm, Healthland under the management of LeisureNet Group, from South
Africa. He learned and developed his fitness
centre design skills from well-known South African architects from firm
Keystone Architects, Cape Town. In this company, his major success was to
start a mark in Fitness Centre design in Australia,
with the opening of the state of the art gyms then at Healthland
St.Leonards, Randwick
and Bond
Street, Sydney CBD
(conversion from the old Sydney Stock Exchange tenancy).
Two years later, Healthland as a
company was then taken over by an English company, Fitness First UK Plc Ltd due
to the failure of the LeisureNet, South African
counterpart. Simon went out from designing fitness centre for a short time,
where he took contract opportunities in medium residential, hotel and pubs
projects before he was called in 2001 by Fitness First Australia
Pty Ltd to head up their design team as Design Manager/ Architect for their
extensive rollout designs of Fitness First Centre Australia
wide.
Simon was the key leader managing
a small design team for the design, rollout and acquisition transformation fit-outs of Fitness First centres around Australia.
During growth period of 2001-2006, Simon was integral in the success and
unstoppable growth of Fitness First at that time. The market at that time was
so hungry for a stable Fitness Centre chain that almost every new club opened
became so popular and successful with overflowing members. Fitness First grows
at a rate of 10 clubs per year to about 98 clubs in 2011.One major achievement
for Simon is the design and concepts of Fitness First Platinum and Black
Label at Bondi Junction Westfield, which was then the biggest income
producing Fitness Centre, not just in Fitness First international empire, but
also the world!
Unfortunately, with the saturation of market by
alternative budget and 24-hour gyms in 2006-2012, there was a period of decline
for Fitness First. In 2012, Fitness First witnessed a change under different
owner/management. As a result of the rationalisation of portfolio, Fitness
First shed 20 clubs and in 2013 initiated new Brand Change Strategy globally.
Simon was fortunate to be part of the journey and was one of the original Australian
design delegates to formulate new brand strategies for the new Fitness First.
Simon worked with then engaged external architects and consultants to develop
the new prototype clubs at The Zone, Brighton and Market St.
Towards late 2013 early 2014, Simon
single-handedly produced the first pilots rebrand projects for Kings Cross,
Darlinghurst and bit later Maroubra Fitness First, which turned out
to be 3 top performer clubs in terms of member growth, retention and EBITDA.
As the result of the success of
these pilots, the new owners approved the capital spend for the rebrand of rest
of portfolio (about $42M), with about 60 projects ran continuously from
2014-15.
In April 2015, with the
completion of the Rebrand Projects, Simon decided to move out and venture for
new opportunities outside Fitness First.
Since then, he has been focused in Retail Project and Design Management of retail
fit-outs as his new area of expertise. Over period of over 6.5 years, working for
successful fashion chain operator, Retail Apparel Group (RAG), Simon has
successfully designed, documented and managed over 450 new stores in Australia
and NZ, expansions and upgrade for successful brands for RAG; CONNOR, yd, TAROCASH,
ROCKWEAR and Johnny BIGG.
In August 2022, Simon left RAG to
pursue the next steps of his career journey.
During the years designing gyms,
health centres and retail stores, Simon was constantly approached to offer his
design skills outside his work by different close individuals. Due to high
level of request from private clients, he has developed a new part of his
consulting series to assist in design services, ranging from interior fit-out
to council development applications, design & documentation for retail,
commercial, hospitality and residential works. He calls this entity as Simon
Jonid Design.
He hereby invites you to his world of designer living, for a
mutually rewarding in all areas concerned for everybody involved.