Uncertainty surrounds status of Adelaide’s Blackwood Fitness following December closure

Members of Adelaide gym Blackwood Fitness, many of whom had paid for 12 month memberships, are facing uncertainty over the future of the facility which suddenly closed last month.

The company behind the gym, located in the city’s south east in the foothills of the Mount Lofty Ranges, faces winding up in the Federal Court next Monday as customers and staff remain out of pocket for gym memberships and unpaid entitlements.

As reported by The Adelaide Advertiser, the fitness centre was shut down in December when its landlord changed the locks due to a failure to pay about $40,000 in rent.

The gym’s website was subsequently shut down and the venue remains closed.

John Pavlis, who is the director of the company that runs Blackwood Fitness, told The Advertiser at the time that he had refused to pay rent because of structural and safety issues at the site.

Pavlis’ company, Forward Half Pty Ltd, which runs the club, was placed in voluntary administration on 23rd December.

That application, which relates to a debt allegedly owed to builder ICM Construction, will return to court on Monday.

ICM Director Gene Stewart told The Advertiser he had done $130,000 of fit-out work at the gym and had not been paid.

Customers of the gym were left irate when it closed just before Christmas, with many having bought memberships as Christmas presents for loved ones.

Former staff members have contacted The Advertiser, saying they have not been paid superannuation, and that the operation has been run under a number of different company entities over the past few years.

One of the companies Pavlis has used to run the centre, XTU Pty Ltd, has been in liquidation since 2016 following a court action from Australian Taxation Office.

Last year one employee was awarded a payout of more than $65,000 by the SA Employment Tribunal for non-payment of super, wages and “consistently late salary payments’’, while Pavlis, of Craigburn Farm, also had a $42,685 employment tribunal judgment against him in October for failing to pay employee Bianca Strahan superannuation over a five-year period.

Images: Classes at Blackwood Fitness (top) and a 2019 promotion from Blackwood Fitness offering discounted long-term memberships (below).