I am the owner of Urban Body Fitness (UBF) in Midtown. I would love to give you an update on UBF, but first let me tell you that everyone at UBF is concerned about those impacted by this pandemic—from both a health and a financial standpoint.
I have owned a fitness center since 2002 and have just turned 60. I have never witnessed anything like this. With the COVID-19 outbreak, we were forced to close, despite being the cleanest gym in Atlanta.
On March 19 of this year, we closed and mothballed the space to save money on utilities.
Luckily for us, we had been in communication with our members since the beginning of March. We had covered items like our enhanced cleaning procedures and additional hygienic requirements for our members (like washing their hands both on the way in and on the way out of the gym). We actually used so much Lysol on the equipment that we were concerned about overdoing it.
Once we received the closing order, we reached out again to our members to discuss membership dues. Not a single member asked for their March dues back. The week following the March 19 shutdown, we had another discussion with our members about their April membership dues. Without the April billing, we could not pay our employees. As I expected, our membership was overwhelmingly on board with running the April billing. Some members even offered us extra money, and a couple of unpaid trial members even joined just so they could also help!
Of course, not all members were able to do this. Some requested a freeze or termination, some because they had lost their jobs. We processed those, but they were less than 5% of our total membership.
Moving forward, we have made the decision that we will not run our May monthly billing. We have applied for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) with the hope that we can get that money before May 1. This will allow us to pay our employees for another month and pay the rent.
Our trainers are another situation. All our trainers are tenants; they pay rent to us to use the space. Some of them have started training in parking lots and garages, and a couple have started online training.
These trainers are the folks I am the most concerned about. We loaned them most of our equipment that was not bolted down so they could continue to train clients while we were shut down. I don’t know how else to help them.
Being realistic, we don’t expect to be allowed to open prior to mid-May. Assuming we do get to re-open in May, we have a special surprise for all the members who paid in April and never got to use the gym, as a “thank you” for supporting us through this difficult time.
Georgia Voice spoke with Rad Slough, the owner of Urban Body, who says they plan to reopen on April 25 with the following restrictions:
- Allowing a maximum capacity of 50 people in 14,000 square feet, including staff
- Following social distancing recommended guidelines
- Adding more spray bottles of Lysol throughout the gym
- Requiring everyone to wash their hands on the way in with a touchless soap dispenser.
- Instituting touchless thermometer checks
- Removing the towel bins in the bathrooms (Urban Body has included towel service including wash cloths to dry hands in the bathroom). They will be dropped in the main drop area to help reduce the handling of used towels. Workout towels are required, so they furnish them.