MORGAN PARK — Dozens of neighbors rallied with their alderman Monday morning to demand a Far South Side gym stay open days after corporate leaders announced it would close next month.
Neighbors who frequent Esporta Fitness, 11520 S. Marshfield Ave., saw a sign taped to the door earlier this month saying the gym would shut its doors 2 p.m. April 1, they said.
Another sign encourages members to go to the nearest LA Fitness location in suburban Oak Lawn. Esporta Fitness is an affordable gym model under the LA Fitness brand.
Ald. Ronnie Mosley (21st), whose ward includes the gym, has yet to hear from company officials why the gym is closing, despite multiple requests for meetings, he said. He learned it would close the same way neighbors did.
Amid chants of “Keep our gym open” and “Our health matters,” Mosley demanded company officials reconsider their decision and “prioritize the health and welfare of our residents,” Mosley said.
The Esporta gym in Morgan Park is a community space for all neighbors but especially for older people, who “come to nurture their bodies, minds and spirits,” Mosley said.
Over 1,000 residents and Esporta Fitness members signed a petition urging company officials to reverse its decision.
Mosley tried to deliver the petition and a community letter to a front desk staff member at the gym on Monday, but the staffer told Mosley he couldn’t accept the documents.
LA Fitness and Esporta Fitness representatives didn’t respond to Block Club’s request for comment.
“We refuse to sit idly by as central community assets are stripped away, leaving behind a void in our hearts and our lives,” Mosley said. “We refuse to accept a future where our health is compromised because of decisions made without centering our well-being.”
Linda Martin, a 69-year-old Chesterfield resident, has been going to the Morgan Park Esporta Fitness six days a week for 10 years, she said.
As a diabetic, maintaining a consistent fitness routine is essential to her health, Martin said. She often takes Aqua Fit classes at the gym’s pool and participates in SilverSneakers, a free program for people 65 and older.
Without the Morgan Park gym, the South Side is in danger of becoming a “fitness desert,” Martin said. It would take her over 30 minutes to drive to the LA Fitness in Oak Lawn, and the south suburban location doesn’t offer the SilverSneakers program, she said.
“Seniors like me depend on this club,” Martin said. “This gym means the world for our health, for our life. You’re not just taking something recreational away. We need this for our emotional, psychological and physical health.”
Esporta Fitness will be at least the fourth 21st Ward business to abruptly close in the past year, leaving a void in Marshfield Plaza — a city “success story” that received $26.5 million in tax-increment financing under Mayor Richard M. Daley’s leadership in 2010.
A Walmart Supercenter closed in Chatham in April 2023, years after the company fought to open stores in Chicago.
A West Roseland Walgreens pharmacy was one of 150 locations nationwide to close in November 2023.
Cinema Chatham, one of the South Side’s few movie theaters, permanently closed in January.
“It’s a level of disrespect to not let us know, to not have us be a part of the conversation to be a resource, to be a solution to whatever challenges are there,” Mosley said. “When we look in the past and see how these same organizations wanted to be partners with us in coming here, but that partnership ends when they decide, it’s unequal.”
The gym’s hours have been cut in recent months from 5 a.m-10 p.m. to 8 a.m.-8 p.m., and some of the facilities like the showers haven’t been well maintained, neighbors said. The Oak Lawn LA Fitness offers fewer than half of the group fitness classes that are available in Morgan Park, they said.
Neighbors said they have heard different stories from company representatives as to why the gym is closing.
Martin said she was told it was because “they couldn’t afford the lease,” she said.
Another official told Michael Brammer, who organized the petition, the gym was closing “due to low membership,” Brammer said. But the number of signatures he’s received makes clear how many people frequent the gym, he said.
“Why did you not come to the membership to let us know that you were closing the gym?” Brammer said. “Why was the first option to close the gym and not to talk to the membership?”
In addition to establishing healthier routines, many of the gym’s members have forged bonds with each other, Leroy Ector, 62, said.
“This gym brings us together,” he said. “We can come together, cook for each other and keep the brotherhood and sisterhood going.”
Ector said he’s lost 40 pounds since joining the gym and taking Aquafit classes. Initially, he couldn’t move his legs as high in the pool as other members, but with their encouragement, he now glides in the water, he said.
Terry Taylor had a hemorrhagic stroke in 2020 that limited his mobility, he said. Doctors told him if he “wanted his mobility back,” he’d have to do the work on his dime and time, he said.
When Taylor started going to Esporta Fitness, he felt embarrassed by how people might look at him, he said. But fellow gym members helped him gain his strength back, he said.
Going to the gym has become his therapy, Taylor said.
“Everybody has become like family,” he said. “They look out for me. They’ve seen my progress more than I’ve seen it.”
The 21st Ward needs a fitness center, Mosley said. If Esporta Fitness leaves, the alderman said he will work with the building’s owners and the community to find another business to take its place.
“I’ve heard loud and clear from the community that this service is needed,” Mosley said. “If they are to go, then we want to see it replaced, and if it’s going to be replaced, then it should be replaced with someone from our community.”
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