Living Well fitness center, where James Ogles has spent 12 years exercising, will close its doors this June.
The database analyst in UF College of Engineering, along with more than 200 Living Well faculty and staff members, will have to find somewhere else to work out other than the Yon Hall center.
The close comes after budget woes and declining conditions of the gym equipment and facility. From 2012 to 2013, Living Well made $72,328 in total revenue and had $166,696 in total expenses, according to a Living Well financial overview.
Michael B. Reid, College of Health and Human Performance dean, said the 30-year-old facility has run its course.
“It been a wonderful resource,” he said. “There hasn’t been enough money to repair it and keep it up to university standards.”
To accommodate faculty and staff, the College of Health and Human Performance and UF Department of Recreational Sports is making Living Well memberships transferable to a Rec Sports membership. Faculty and staff could work out at the Southwest Recreation Center and the Student Recreation and Fitness Center. Members who do not want to work out at the student gyms can be reimbursed for the unused share of their memberships.
But Ogles, 56, said working out alongside students would not be the best option for him.
“As an older person, I would feel out of place going to a student center,” he said. “I’m a bit distressed about trying to figure out where I’m going to go. A lot of fitness centers in town are not convenient for me, or else they are very expensive.”
UF professor emeritus of architecture Ira Winarsky, 71, said Living Well has helped him and the faculty and staff at UF stay healthy.
“I’m concerned some of the faculty will just stop and won’t continue to work out,” he said. “I’ve made friendships, and I don’t want to lose them. I’ve also become quite fit and don’t want to lose that, either.”
[A version of this story ran on page 3 on 2/10/2014 under the headline "UF faculty fitness center to close"]
