The amount of space leased by fitness centers and gyms in malls and upscale open-air shopping centers grew by about 69 percent nationwide over the past five years, and the number of leases has nearly doubled, reports the Chicago Tribune.

In Chicago roughly a dozen gyms have leased space in malls and multi-tenant shopping centers in each of the past five years. Fitness tenants have picked up roughly 1 million square feet of shopping center space since 2013, according to data firm CoStar Group. There is an Equinox Fitness facility at 900 North Michigan Shops and a rock-climbing gym at Block Thirty Seven on State Street. At the Roosevelt Collection in the South Loop, meanwhile, shoppers can choose between interval training, boxing and yoga.

More fitness centers are headed to Chicago malls, including a three-story Life Time club with a rooftop pool on the site of a former Sears Auto Center at Oakbrook Center, and a 40,000-square-foot UFC Gym set to replace a former Sports Authority at Yorktown Center.

Fitness tenants can fill the big spaces left behind when department stores shut down, says Sean McCourt, a CBRE vice president, which is a tremendous benefit at a time when few retailers are looking to take on that much space.