Fight to keep downtown health club stays alive, but the doors could still close soon

A Bibb County judge extended a temporary injunction Friday requiring the Medical Center, Navicent Health, to keep the downtown Macon Health Club open until April 30.

After that, the club may be closed for a short period while the hospital and the club’s former owner litigate the hospital’s obligations to honor a 1991 agreement with Macon Health Center Inc., the club’s former owner.

When Macon Health Center Inc. gave the club to The Medical Center of Central Georgia in 1991, the two parties agreed that the former owner would have a right to lease the facility if the hospital chose to close it before Dec. 13, 2020. The facility had opened in 1908 as a YMCA on the corner of First and Cherry streets.

Over the years, the club’s former owner has been known as both Macon Health Center Inc. and Macon Health Club Inc., though the same people have been involved with both corporations.

The hospital announced last fall it planned to close the club.

A hospital lawyer argued at a Wednesday hearing that Macon Health Center Inc. failed to remain an active corporation and cannot transfer its rights to Macon Health Club Inc. to enforce the agreement. He said neither entity has legal standing in the case.

The hospital filed a motion for summary judgment March 1, arguing there aren’t any issues to be determined by a jury and that the case should be resolved in its favor before trial. Judge David Mincey denied the motion Friday, writing that the issue is one for a jury to consider.

Macon Health Club Inc. contends the hospital was aware — or should have been aware — that the same group formed a second corporation of the same name in 2009 as it negotiated with the hospital to keep the club open.

A third corporation, also named Macon Health Club Inc., was formed in 2017 by the same group that signed the 1991 agreement.

Kerry Howell, an attorney representing Macon Health Club Inc., argued during Wednesday’s hearing that jurors should have the opportunity to determine whether the hospital waived a breach of contract claim by negotiating with the group in 2009 and in recent months before the Medical Center filed a lawsuit in Bibb County Superior Court.

Before filing the lawsuit, the hospital had offered to charge the group $604,000 annually to lease the facility.

In his order Friday, Mincey wrote that “reasonable minds could certainly differ as to the legal significance of the actions taken and not taken over the course of years.”

Mincey instructed the hospital and Macon Health Club Inc. to try to mediate the case — to reach an agreement outside the courtroom — by April 26.

While the hospital must keep the club open until the close of business April 30, it doesn’t have further obligation to operate the facility in the period leading up to a trial, if one occurs, according to the judge’s order.

It’s expected that the case should be resolved no later than late May or early June, resulting in less than two months of service interruption if the club does reopen, Mincey wrote.

Reached for comment Friday afternoon, former congressman and Macon mayor Jim Marshall said the judge is taking an appropriate approach in pushing the parties to reach an agreement quickly.

A hospital spokeswoman said the Medical Center has received a copy of the judge’s order and “will fully abide by the terms and conditions of the order.”

The club, which once had more than a 1,000 members, has about 450 members remaining.

This story was originally published March 31, 2017 at 5:37 PM with the headline "Fight to keep downtown health club stays alive, but the doors could still close soon."