The University has recently purchased 30 memberships to Fitness World, enabling students-who find the temporary setup of the Card Gym workout equipment inconvenient-to use the off-campus facility for free.
The nuisance of splitting the equipment between the triple-width trailer outside Card Gym and the Intramural Building and the overcrowding that resulted in the East Campus gym spurred administrators to search for another viable alternative.
According to the deal signed by Executive Vice President Tallman Trask, an unlimited number of students can access Fitness World by signing liability contracts and presenting their DukeCards, which will be equipped with bar codes. Already, 18 students have signed membership agreements with the facility.
If more than 30 students sign contracts during October, then the University will pay for memberships for that number of students in November, said Jeff Hubbard, president and owner of Fitness World. For instance, he explained, if 75 students sign contracts with Fitness World this month, then the University will pay for 75 memberships next month.
Both parties will review the contract and its success continuously, but Trask said he anticipates that the deal will remain in place until the completion of the West Campus Recreation Facility, which is scheduled to open in fall 1999.
The 30 discounted one-month memberships, Trask said, cost the University approximately less than $1,000. At the facility's regular rate of $70 per one-month membership, 30 would cost $2,100.
But Hubbard said the size of the order afforded him the flexibility to offer the University a reasonable discount.
Although cost may not have been a significant factor when the administration negotiated the agreement, the University seems to have received a fair deal, noted Jeff Potter, director of real estate administration at the University and key negotiator of the agreement with Fitness World.
"Because of the competitiveness of the business [Fitness World was] in, they wanted to attract students there over any other club," Potter said. "What I was interested in was not necessarily getting the lowest rate."
Hubbard said he is "ecstatic" about the deal, which just seemed to "fall into [his] lap."
"We're just sitting here on our end saying, 'This is too good to be true,'" he said. "All these sales just fell right into us and we're thrilled."
But exactly how the agreement will operate seems to be point of confusion among the parties involved.
Potter said that only 30 students will be allowed in the facility at a given time. In other words, when the 31st student arrives, that student must wait for another University student to leave before entering.
But Hubbard said that because his employees at Fitness World have no way to monitor the number of students using the facility at one time, they will allow in as many students as they can accommodate.
Fitness World is located across from South Square Mall in Westgate shopping center.
Students may use the facility during its normal hours of operation: Mon.-Thurs. 5:30 a.m.-12 a.m., Fri. 5:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Sat. 8 a.m.-8 p.m. and Sun. 12 p.m.-7 p.m.
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