A trailer from La Grande's True Construction sits outside the former JCPenney, 1309 Adams, Ave., on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. The former retail outlet is being remodeled into a Club 24 Fitness gym.

LA GRANDE — One of La Grande’s iconic buildings is coming back to life.

The former JCPenney building at 1309 Adams Ave., vacant for the past six years, is set to be the future home of a Club 24 Fitness gym. Club 24 Fitness earlier signed a lease agreement with the structure’s owner, and it took effect Tuesday, Jan. 17.

Club 24 Fitness, a corporation with gyms in Oregon and Washington, is now starting renovation work in the former retail space.

“Club 24 Fitness may open this spring,” said Patty Glaze, of La Grande, a broker with the Blue Summit Realty Group who helped arrange the lease agreement between Club 24 Fitness and the La Grande Masonic Building Association, which owns the building.

Club 24 Fitness has gyms in Hermiston, Baker City and Pendleton, and its Washington gyms are in Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, Prosser and Benton City. All Club 24 Fitness gyms are open 24-hours a day throughout the year. The gyms have staff on duty to assist people with exercise programs many hours a day.

The La Grande Masonic Building Association has been attempting to sell or lease the building since the JCPenney store closed.

Lou Gerber, a member of the Masonic association, is delighted that a new business is moving into the building.

“I am excited,” he said. “The community needs this.”

Gerber said the building’s often dark storefront was not an inspiring sight.

“This will make our downtown more vibrant,” he said.

Union County Commissioner Donna Beverage echoed the sentiment.

“It is good to fill those empty buildings,” she said. “It adds to the downtown ambiance.”

The La Grande Masonic Building Association has owned the downtown building for more than a century. Its president, John Harvey, said the association’s board had considered selling the structure. He is pleased it will be leased instead of sold.

He cited two reasons for this, a sense of sentimentality and the security of having a revenue stream in the form of lease payments.

Harvey said the La Grande Masonic Building Association had received rent payments for the building for at least nine decades before JCPenney pulled out.

The building housed La Grande’s JCPenney store from 1931 until 2017 when the store closed. JCPenney continued to make rent payments through 2020 because of a contractual agreement, Harvey said.

The La Grande JCPenney store was one of at least 138 that closed in the United States in 2017. Today, there are more than 650 JCPenney retail stores in the United States and Puerto Rico, according to the corporation’s website.

La Grande’s JCPenney store opened in 1914 at 108 Depot St. before it moved to 1309 Adams in 1931, according to La Grande Historian Bob Bull.

The building at 1309 Adams Ave. has 6,600 square feet on both its main and lower floors, 2,300 square feet of mezzanine space and 330 square feet of office space, all of which will be used by Club 24 Fitness, Glaze said.

Ralph Edwards, of Union County, is the architect for the ongoing renovation, and the engineering work is being done by Les Tipton, also of Union County.