The building at 180 South Main Street was built in 1929 — it has been a grocery store, a bank, an insurance office, and for fifteen years before the current owners arrived, a Pilates studio called Pilates on Main under Sue Swensen, who is credited with bringing Pilates to St. George in the first place. Sheila Bailey acquired the studio in 2017 to preserve what Swensen had built. After meeting Jenna Hansen at a STOTT PILATES instructor training, the two women rebranded the space as Awaken Studios St. George.
The studio holds a Merrithew licensed training facility designation — which is a specific institutional credential from the organization behind STOTT PILATES, one of the dominant professional certification frameworks in the industry. Instructors are STOTT-certified, and the teaching approach integrates breath mechanics, fascia awareness, and neuroscience into the traditional Pilates reformer format. A second Westside Studio location has since opened.
The Main Street address puts the studio in the walking core of the historic downtown grid, a block from the Tabernacle — which is unusual for a fitness studio and signals the kind of deliberate community rooting that the 435 register is designed to surface.
**Verification notes** Website live; ownership confirmed as Sheila Bailey and Jenna Hansen via About page; founding as Awaken Studios in 2017 confirmed; prior history as Pilates on Main corroborated by multiple reviews; Merrithew affiliation confirmed.