Not everyone is happy with the renovations under way at the Leon & Toby Cooperman JCC, Ross Family Campus, in West Orange.

A petition protesting the shutdown of the men’s and women’s health centers — whose clients pay additional fees for separate, members-only locker rooms and workout and lounge facilities — collected more than 200 signatures.

The JCC says the health clubs will be “reconfigured” to accommodate additional lockers and lavatories open to all, and that those facilities will no longer be an “exclusive, paid service.”

JCC MetroWest marketing director Karen Edelstein said less than 10 percent of the total membership — about 375 men and women — belong to the health clubs.

In a Sept. 21 letter to members, Dolly Luwisch, chair of the board of directors, and Michael Hopkins, JCC MetroWest executive director, outlined some of the impending changes.

“We recognize that the Men’s Health Center is a very important part of our members’ lives. Many of you have been members of the Health Center for decades and across generations,” they wrote. “We will make every effort in our redesign to allow you to maintain those elements of the Health Center that have been so meaningful to you over these past many years.”

Many health club members were unappeased.

Gabriel Miller of Maplewood, a member of the men’s health club since 1996, responded to Hopkins in an angry letter, saying, among other things, that he found the “unilateral decision both outrageous and discouraging.”

The JCC held a meeting in October in response to complaints over the changes. It was not a satisfactory experience, Miller told NJ Jewish News.

JCC officials held the meeting after they had already made their decision, he said. “They clearly had no interest in anything that we had to say.”

Miller said the JCC promised three years ago to maintain the health clubs. “They broke that promise,” he said.

“[We] don’t need the men’s health club to be the showplace of health clubs in New Jersey, which is clearly what their priorities are,” he said. Miller cites a 1995 NJJN article that read, in part: “Beyond fee-for-service value, many members enjoy the sense of camaraderie that flourishes; the feeling of caring that many of the members have for one another has kept them coming back for years.”

Miller fears those days are gone.

“That’s not their job to be a business, but a community center,” he said. “They’ve lost sight of that.”

Steve Hamburger, a West Orange resident and member of the men’s health club for six years, was similarly distressed. He drew up the petition.

“Since I’ve been a member, I’ve been enormously impressed with the relationships and the culture that has been built within…the club,” he said. He was quick to emphasize that “community” did not mean “Jews only”; many members of the health club are not Jewish, he said.

“This was never meant to be exclusive,” said Hamburger, a senior director of sales and marketing in the medical publishing field. “Anyone could join and, yes, we were all willing to pay an additional fee to participate in this additional service.”

The current men’s health club features a locker room; an exercise room with cardiovascular equipment, a lounge with a television, and a small kitchen area; a whirlpool, steam room, and sauna area; and massage rooms. Other amenities include laundry service. There is a corresponding service for women. The facilities are available for an additional fee of $50 per month.

According to Edelstein, there has been “declining interest in joining the men’s and women’s health clubs over the years.” She said the clubs are being curtailed “to accommodate the…level of service for all members. We need more locker space than general men’s and women’s rooms have now, and we want to upgrade all the spaces. We need space to accommodate growth and the health of a larger member community. This decision was not made without an incredible amount of thought.”

Edelstein also refuted club members’ charges that the emphasis on the fitness center would detract from the JCC’s Jewish and communal mission. “We are as involved as ever to maintain the Jewishness; we are and always have been,” she said. “We had a lot of members who left us because they want to be part of the JCC but they want a quality fitness experience and they aren’t willing to compromise. What we’re trying to do is bring back a considerable number of [those] members.”