Lease Dispute Closes Giant Fitness Washington Twp. All Other Locations Open and Unaffected – 42 Freeway

The Giant Fitness location in Washington Township has permanently closed this evening due to a contractual lease dispute between the property owner and Giant Fitness. 

The outcome of the dispute lead to the “loss of lease” for the Giant Fitness in Washington Township only.   All other Giant Fitness and Jersey Girls locations are open and unaffected.

In fact of the seven locations for Giant Fitness, only in Washington Township was Giant Fitness tenants! Yes, for all of their other locations the locally owned multi-location gym company owns the buildings and properties.

The Washington Township Giant Fitness and Jersey Girls Gym is located in the Echo Plaza shopping center at the corner of Hurffville-Cross Keys and Fries Mill Road. Verchio’s Produce and Deli is across the street.

For the Washington Township location closing, it was late afternoon when word of the closing was announced to on-site members, and a sign was put on the front window stating they would be closing at 9:00 PM tonight.

But when I stopped over around 7:00 PM the gym space was already darkened. I was able to catch up with Giant Fitness General Manager Dom who was out front greeting a seemingly never-ending stream of members who heard the news online and wanted to stop over and confirm for themselves.

Members were shocked at the last minute closing of the popular gym.. as was ownership it seems. Today was a court hearing on the dispute and it seems it was not expected that the outcome was the cancelling of the lease, and having only days to remove everything from the gym.

Dom explained to curious members that yes, the Washington Township location was permanently closed, it was ONLY the Washington Twp location impacted, there are nearby locations in Blackwood-Clementon Road and Woodbury Heights if a member chose to continue utilizing Giant Fitness…  and Giant was also willing to cancel memberships if the member chooses.

He added that Friday (Jan 3) during the day there would be staff on-site at Washington Twp to assist with cancellations, but I’m sure members could also reach out to another location later on if Friday wasn’t suitable.

Dom went on to say an email will be sent very soon to Washington Township Giant Fitness members announcing the closure and clarifying all of the options.

As mentioned, all indications are that this was a very specific issue related to the contractual lease agreement with Washington Township only.

I’ve been covering Giant Fitness for several years and have had multiple conversations with founder Sam Balducci who has shared his history and philosophy with the fitness industry, and has stated he prefers owning the building that his gyms operate in… but to be in Washington Township the only suitable space they could find required them to be tenants.

Consider that in just the few years they’ve purchased the stand-alone Jersey Girls gym building in Westville, the large Commerce shopping center building on Blackwood-Clementon Road (where they relocated the Blackwood gym to)…  And just last week Giant Fitness completed the purchase of a two-story 50,000 square foot office building on Route 38 in Moorestown which they will be converting into a Giant Fitness and Jersey Girl gym.

While I do not know their financials, things look like they are going well for the fitness brand.

Now for those looking for details of the disagreement… while I have located some court documents related to the dispute, I am not looking to dive-in unless its a direct quote from one (or more) of the parties involved.

But simply the landlord felt there were additional rent monies owed to which the Giant Fitness group did not agree with.. it went to court… and the lease was terminated and Giant Fitness has only a few days to vacate the space.

Links and Location

Giant Fitness and Jersey Girls Washington Township (Closed)
309 Fries Mill Rd #9
Sewell, NJ 08080