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Empty store offers gym room to grow

All People's TyRon Lewis Community Gym wants to expand. But first, the city must agree.

By JON WILSON
Published March 2, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - The All People's TyRon Lewis Community Gym, which opened four years ago to serve low-income residents in Midtown, will get about 20 percent bigger if the City Council approves.

The Uhuru-affiliated gym, 1327 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. S, will expand into 400 square feet of adjacent space that had been occupied by a grocery store, which has closed.

City Council approval is needed because the city awarded a $177,155 federal grant to the African People's Education and Defense Fund to renovate an abandoned building and turn it into a gym and store. The gym-only use requires a change in the contract between the city government and the fund.

A council committee approved the change last week. The full council will take it up at its 8:30 a.m. meeting Thursday and again on March 17.

The gym's name proved controversial before it opened in 2001. Some residents and City Council members objected to naming it after TyRon Lewis, a convicted criminal whose shooting during a confrontation with police ignited riots in 1996. Lewis was 18 years old.

But the City Council's policy and planning committee last week dealt only with contractual issues, approving three of six that fund officials requested. Another was approved after the committee offered a compromise.

The name is no longer an issue, said Janice Kant, administrator for the fund.

"The issue is, we're serving hundreds of people every year who otherwise wouldn't have access to improving their health. It's changing people's lives," Kant said.

She said the gym has served about 1,200 people annually since it opened, about 87 percent of whom are considered low to moderate income. Between 53 and 64 percent have come from the city's target area, or Midtown, she said. Gym director Damon Reio said as many as 25 percent are white.

The council committee also agreed to these contract changes:

Requiring the gym to serve 96 percent city residents instead of 100 percent. (Fund officials had requested 90 percent.)

Revising the sliding-scale fee to bring it in line with HUD income levels. It will slightly increase client fees.

Allow quarterly reports from the gym instead of monthly.

The council committee denied these contract changes fund officials requested:

Requiring audits every three years instead of annually.

"This is a real sticking point with the City Council" to require the annual audits, said policy and planning member Virginia Littrell.

Kant said the audits are expensive, costing the fund one-third to one-half the amount of the original grant during the term of the contract.

Lowering the required service to target area residents from 90 percent to 51 percent of all clients served.

The reason, said Reio, is that low-income people who are city residents but who live outside the Midtown area want to use the gym.

But the committee thinks the fund should work harder to get people within the target area, said member Earnest Williams.

Plans call for the additional gym space to be used for free aerobics classes, made possible by a grant from the Allegany Franciscan Foundation Tampa Bay, a Catholic organization whose headquarters are in Clearwater.

[Last modified March 2, 2005, 00:47:18]