Florida Sun Fitness Health Club update

There was a shocking development on January 8, 2009 involving the Florida Sun Fitness healthclub at 101 N. Clematis. Right before the Thursday night Clematis by Night party at 6 PM behind the old library and next to the fountains, I noticed that the healthclub was dark. This was very unusual, since it's normally open until 9 PM and Thursday night is usually a particularly active night. I ran into another person who was going there to do his workout -- we were both bewildered by the darkness and the fact that there were also no signs to indicate why it wasn't open or what was going on.

The next day I went around to the other door inside the 101 N. Clematis building, and discovered that there was a foreclosure notice on the inside door of the healthclub. I haven't yet put together all the details/facts of what happened, but it appears that the "owner" of the property was the owner of a similar healthclub in Vermont who had a mortgage and couldn't or didn't pay it, resulting in the seizure of the property by the bank. I'm not sure how much the local owner of this health club Marcello knew about this, but it appears he was unceremoniously kicked out of the building because the property owner didn't pay the mortgage. I'll try to get some more information and post some further updates.

In the meantime, this situation doesn't make much sense. Whoever is really the owner of that equipment and those beautiful facilities is now going to lose a lot more money than they were already losing. Because now all the willing customers who were paying money on a monthly basis to use the facilities will no longer be paying that money and the revenue stream will be lost. You would think that the foreclosing bank would at least want to keep up the revenue stream from the operation of the healthclub to at least minimize losses until the economy improves. But instead, the lights are out, the equipment is unutilized, and the regular users of the healthclub are left "in the dark". I hope that someone is working on a resolution to this and will let you know when and if I'm able to find out more. Maybe a concerned local citizen or government will step in and try to save this club for the benefit of Clematis Street. Maybe the bank will work things out with the owners and they'll reopen shortly. Only time will tell. In the meantime, the economic woes are really showing themselves at the heart of the Clematis Street district 100 block in early January 2009.