by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
It may be late summer before weights are lifted and miles are walked downtown at Gold’s Gym.
“The owners are saying it will be done by July but, the way things are going, I think we’ll be open in mid-August,” said John Peavy, sales manager for Gold’s in Jacksonville. “We were supposed to open in March.”
According to Peavy, design changes have caused the delay in the opening of the 20,000 square-foot facility on the northwest corner of Laura and Adams. A bathroom ceiling also needed to be raised and a few permits still need to be pulled.
Peavy started selling memberships to the gym in November and, according to flyers, the first two phases of membership have sold out. While those 500-plus members don’t have a downtown gym, Peavy said he’s working with those who have paid their enrollment fees and dues and those who have signed up but have yet to pay for their memberships.
“We will not charge them until we open,” he said. “Some have paid, but we have fixed that problem. Some of them will not get billed until the gym actually opens. Some of them won’t get charged any dues until six months after we open.”
Peavy said explaining the delay to people hasn’t been easy and understandably so. When he began approaching groups and selling memberships back in November, he was pitching a gym that was just a few months from being open. Today, there are treadmills, free weight dumbbells and a few other pieces of equipment in the gym, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
“About 75-80 percent of the members are women so you can imagine my grief,” explained Peavy, who will stay as sales manager when the doors do open.
Once open, the gym will feature brand new weights and cardio equipment, chiropractic services, personal training and tanning services. Gold’s will provide a front desk and sales staff, but the other services will be contracted out. There is also another 15,000 square feet on the second floor for future expansion.
“Once the gym actually opens, I expect we’ll have about 3,000 members,” said Peavy. “There will be some work done this week and over the next few weeks we will be really busy. When people see activity, more will join. When they see there is nothing going on, it’s kind of slow.”