The Atlanta Gymnastics Center, a southeast Decatur staple for at least 20 years, is apparently closing for good. When students and their parents arrived for classes Monday they found the doors closed, and the locks were changed Tuesday.
The center is on the Talley Street property that City Schools Decatur bought in July. School Board Chair Annie Caiola said that AGC owner Christine Calvert knew well in advance that both closing the facility was inevitable and that her lease expired the end of this month.
About 20 AGC parents showed up at Decatur’s school board meeting Tuesday, with Superintendent David Dude saying he was still trying to sort through the facility’s lease.
CSD plans to build a school on Talley, though the timeline isn’t certain.
Tuesday night the board approved an agreement with a consulting firm to conduct public input sessions regarding both CSD’s future configuration and the type school (a K-2, K-3 or 4/5 Academy) for Talley. Caiola said it would probably be May at the earliest before the board would approve either of the two options recommended last month by a facilities task force committee, or choose an alternative of its own.
Given that, demolition of the gymnastics center likely wouldn’t happen until late this year. The gymnastics meet season lasts only through the spring.
According to Laura Wheeler, who served as a parent spokes person Tuesday, the AGC serves about 1,000 students. She said the center had planned moving into a new facility on Ponce de Leon Avenue across from the DeKalb Farmers Market, but that deal fell through.
“As of now,” Wheeler said, “we don’t have anyplace to go.”
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