Historic downtown gym to remain open — for now

Months after the Medical Center, Navicent Health, announced intentions to close the downtown Macon Health Club, a judge instructed the hospital to keep the club open while he considers arguments made in a Wednesday hearing stemming from a lawsuit filed by the hospital. The hospital is seeking to clarify its obligations to the club’s former owner.

Opened in 1908 as a YMCA facility on the corner of First and Cherry streets, ownership of the health club was transferred to the then-Medical Center of Central Georgia in 1991 with a caveat that the owner, Macon Health Center Inc., could exercise an option to lease the facility if the hospital decided to close it before Dec. 13, 2020.

The hospital sent a letter to officers of Macon Health Center Inc. last fall, notifying them of their plan to close the club Dec. 31. Subsequently, the group’s officers voted to lease the space from the hospital and resume control of operations.

Negotiations were held between September and January, including the hospital offering to charge Macon Health Center $604,000 annually to lease the facility, said Kerry Howell, an attorney for Macon Health Club Inc. said, during the Wednesday hearing in Bibb County Superior Court.

The hospital filed its lawsuit in February and argued Wednesday that Macon Health Center Inc. doesn’t have legal standing to enforce the 1991 agreement.

Macon Health Center Inc. failed to remain current as a Georgia corporation and was dissolved in 2001, said Roy Harold Meeks Jr., an attorney representing the hospital.

In 2009, soon after the hospital announced plans to close the club, a new corporation — also with the name Macon Health Center Inc. — was formed, he said.

The new corporation isn’t a successor to the first one of the same name that entered into the 1991 agreement with the hospital, Meeks said in court Wednesday.

A third corporation, Macon Health Club Inc., was formed in 2017, and also isn’t a successor to the first company, Meeks argued.

Howell, who also is a member of the downtown health club, argued the hospital was aware — or should have been aware — that Macon Health Center Inc. was a second entity when it entered into negotiations with the corporation in 2009 to keep the club open.

The hospital has filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing there aren’t any issues to be determined by a jury and that the case should be resolved in its favor.

Howell argued jurors should have the opportunity to determine whether the hospital waived a breach of contract claim by continuing to honor the 1991 contract with the club in 2009, and again late last year.

The current Macon Health Club Inc.’s board members are the same people who served on the first Macon Health Center Inc.’s board, he said.

Earlier this month the hospital and Macon Health Club Inc. signed a consent order to keep the health club open until Thursday.

Wednesday, Howell asked the judge to grant an injunction to keep the club open at least until June.

He said the hospital doesn’t have plans to fire any staff if they close the club, so the cost to keep it open wouldn’t be that much.

Howell also questioned how the hospital’s losses could have doubled between 2015 and 2016 while membership increased by 20 percent.

Meeks argued the hospital already has been operating the club at a loss under the mistaken notion that it was bound by the 1991 contract with a corporation that no longer exists. Under the terms of the contract, he contended the hospital was only bound to keep the club open until March 12.

When the hospital took over operation of the club more than 25 years ago, it was closing and the windows were boarded up, Meeks said.

Howell said the club that once had more than a 1,000 members now has about 450.

This story was originally published March 29, 2017 at 6:45 PM with the headline "Historic downtown gym to remain open — for now."