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Posted on Tue, Nov 29, 2011 : 11:28 a.m.

Ann Arbor's Bally's Total Fitness among locations being sold to L.A. Fitness

By Lizzy Alfs

L.A. Fitness is buying 171 Bally’s Total Fitness locations in a $153 million deal that could be finalized on Thursday, the Chicago Tribune reports.

All 12 Bally’s locations in Michigan, including the one in Ann Arbor on Briarwood Circle, are included in the deal.

Chicago-based Bally’s, which filed for bankruptcy in 2007 and 2008, currently has 271 locations. After the acquisition, it will continue to operate the remaining 100 clubs in “key markets” like New York, San Francisco, Houston and Denver.

The locations being sold to L.A. Fitness include all the Bally’s in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington, plus the District of Columbia, all of the locations in the greater Los Angeles area and certain locations in New Jersey, New York, Texas and Virginia, according to a company release.

Irvine, Calif.-based L.A. Fitness has more than 350 locations nationwide.

Read the full report here.

Lizzy Alfs is a business reporter for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at 734-623-2584 or email her at lizzyalfs@annarbor.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lizzyalfs.

Comments

My2bits

Wed, Nov 30, 2011 : 1:32 p.m.

Anyone else remember the horrible Washtenaw Ave. Bally's? I dropped my membership years ago.

Lac Court Orilles

Wed, Nov 30, 2011 : 12:32 p.m.

Great, maybe LA Fitness will clean the place up. The locker room is disgusting. The place just reeks of filth. Locker room attendants need to be present and cleaning full time during business hours.

Borisgoodenough

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 : 10:24 p.m.

Lizzy, did you ask if the club will continue to honor current Bally memberships? Otherwise, lots of locals will be out lots of bucks with no clubs in the state.

Alaina

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 : 10:52 p.m.

Check your contract, but if I recall correctly, the rules in the past have stated that if there are no clubs within a certain driving distance, you should be able to cancel your membership. That is, if Bally's will actually let you, and since I don't trust them, I wish you the best of luck getting your money back!

Alaina

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 : 9:35 p.m.

See Ya, Ballys!!! What an awful health club- both this particular location, and as a corporation. They had some of the worst business practices, including either misrepresenting or outright lying about the 3 year membership obligations, which have been documented on numerous consumer complaint websites and even lead to investigations and new laws in New York State: <a href="http://www.ag.ny.gov/media_center/2004/feb/feb16b_04.html" rel='nofollow'>http://www.ag.ny.gov/media_center/2004/feb/feb16b_04.html</a> Additionally, they sent out past-due notices of membership fees, tricking people into re-signing up for membership. I got one of these letters and they were so mis-leading that I had to actually contact their corporate office to make sure that I had successfully cancelled my membership. They got in trouble for this in Texas: <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/health/headlines/20100608-Bally-Total-Fitness-accused-of-sending-9436.ece" rel='nofollow'>http://www.dallasnews.com/health/headlines/20100608-Bally-Total-Fitness-accused-of-sending-9436.ece</a> This doesn't even touch on their SEC and accounting fraud accusations and settlements (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bally_Total_Fitness#cite_note-10)" rel='nofollow'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bally_Total_Fitness#cite_note-10)</a> What an absolutely despicable corporation. Like another poster said, Good Riddance. Don't let the door hit you on the way out!!

ThaKillaBee

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 : 6:37 p.m.

Good riddance.

shepard145

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 : 6:23 p.m.

If there was ever a health club that needed to be closed down by a health department, that was it. The mechanical system is completely inadequate to handle the people working out, the place smells like BO and the locker rooms were disgusting 10 years ago. One of my personal favorate moments was working out on the packed stationary cycles when a clueless employee came up in the middle of all of us and started spraying down the open machines with amonia. ...so apparently when they do clean, they'd rather not do it after hours! LOL The parking lot is also a fraction of what they need, forcing people to park at surrounding businesses. When starting improvements, begin with dynamiting that dump.

leezee

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 : 5:38 p.m.

Hope they make some improvements in there. The place is so run down and disgusting.