BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -
Signs promoting
a $1 enrollment fee and $20 per month membership plans at Powerhouse Gym have
been up for months on South Sherwood Forest Boulevard.
The brand
new gym was set to have a Jan. 13 grand opening. One member, who asked not
to be identified, signed up in October.
"We
thought, 'Okay, three months it'll be ready,'" the woman said. "New
Year's resolution, you know, get in shape. Well, New Year's came
around. They didn't open."
She said
she paid $59 up front and some of her friends paid up to $700 for a full year's
membership. Now, she said she's aggravated she can't start her workouts at
Powerhouse.
The woman
is not alone. Dozens of people are taking their frustrations to the gym's
Facebook page.
Randy
Young, the gym's general manager, said delays like this are normal.
"This
will be my 109th gym," he said. "The original day was January
13th. The average gym in America opens between three months and six months
late."
The
construction was on target for the January opening, according to Young, but
problems with contractors slowed things down.
"When
we first started the project we started with a contractor that was going to be
a partner. [We] had problems with that contractor. He was building without
permits," Young explained.
City
records show the department does not currently have permits on file to continue
building Powerhouse Gym and in December, a stop-work order was issued.
Young said
he will have permits in the next couple of days and the gym should open in 30
days. That's two months after paid members planned to break a sweat in the gym.
"You
have other gyms in the area that have opened up in less time than this one
has," one member said. "It was supposed to be a state-of-the-art
place. I ain't seen it."
Powerhouse
insists the gym will be worth the wait and invited the news crew to tour the
facility in the next couple of weeks to show progress.
Young said
members will not be billed until the gym opens.
Copyright 2012 WAFB. All rights reserved.
