Gold’s Gym at Knoxville Center to close

Gold’s Gym at Knoxville Center Mall will close May 16, store manager Chad Mealey confirmed.

The gym notified customers with a sign posted outside on Monday. SPM Communications, media relations partner to Gold’s Gym, said in an email the decision to not renew the lease was based on “a variety of factors.”

SPM wrote there will be no changes to membership dues and members will be able to use the other Gold’s Gym locations in Knoxville. The Knoxville Center location will continue standard operations until it closes.

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Mealey would not comment on membership reaction, but said his focus is helping the gym’s employees navigate next steps.

“Most importantly, we’re trying to get (employees) relocated to another club,” he said.

Josh Vandergriff has been a member at the mall location for 16 years.

He said the announcement came as a shock. He’s trying to find a different gym between home and work. Vandergriff lives in the Fountain City area.

“There’s a few gyms out there but nothing with the kind of equipment this place (has),” he said.

Mealey estimates the facility is about 45,000 square feet.

Planet Fitness and National Fitness Center are two of the closest gyms, about three miles from the closing Gold’s Gym.

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Member Jesse Goinds works out five days a week, and has been a member for 2½ years. He said it is too far to drive anywhere else, and nearby gyms are smaller.

“I can go west, but I’d rather come here though,” Goinds said.

“I know a lot of the people here, I’ve seen people come and go over the years, and a lot of the people here now have become like family,” Vandergriff said. “It’s hard to not be able to see them anymore.”

Gold’s Gym purchased the Knoxville Center location as part of a 2014 acquisition of The Rush Fitness Complex’s 23 locations in Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

This Gold’s Gym location is on Kingston Pike at Canton Hollow Road in West Knoxville.Buy Photo
This Gold’s Gym location is on Kingston Pike at Canton Hollow Road in West Knoxville. (Photo: (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL))

Gold’s Gym is one of the largest remaining tenants in the mall, and follows recent exits, such as Sci-Fi City, which relocated to Fountain City.

The reporter is a member at Gold’s Gym.