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mythicaldanger
Mar 26, 2009, 3:35 PM
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Hey there everyone,
I'm looking into starting a climbing gym with retail/gear shop, and a cafe. I already have my bussiness plan, the blueprints are underway for it, and I am working on the financing part of it this yr. But my largest hurdle that i have right now is where would be the best place to start it at. I also don't know if i should actually build it from the ground up or try and up-fit a pre-existing building, but that can be decided after i find the place to put the gym at.
If anyone knows where a good quality gym is needed please let me know and i will deffinatly check it out. I am currently trying to find a place relatively close to where i am(NC), but i have also looked into possibly starting it up in the north west- WA, OR, ID, MT, UT, or even Northern Cali. I just don't have any connections out there so i don't know where one is really needed at this time. So like i said if anyone has any suggestions as to where one is needed or would like to see one at please let me know. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Thanks,
Jesse
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orang
Mar 27, 2009, 7:40 PM
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Registered: Apr 16, 2008
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Well I'm in San Antonio and there isn't a dedicated rock gym in the whole city. And there is I believe over 2 million people here now. So sa would probably be a good place if you are willing to come here.
(This post was edited by orang on Mar 27, 2009, 7:40 PM)
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ocfella
Apr 2, 2009, 2:37 PM
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IMHO For sure Orange County specifically Mission Viejo / Aliso Viejo / Irvine / Lake Forest / Tustin / Laguna Niguel / Rancho Santa Margarita / San Juan Capistrano type areas near the 5 freeway.
I assume you know about the Orange County area, believe it or not there's only one gym out here Rockreation in Costa Mesa, which is pretty far for a lot of people, unless you're in that end of OC.
Basically with no traffic it's a good 30 minutes for most of us in regular OC. The gym is normally quite packed, esp at nights and afternoons. So that makes going there that much more a hassle. After six months I had to stop going and just built a wall at home to get buy with, 60 minutes drive round trip after a long work day with a commute just is a joke.
I'm told there used to be a gym in Tustin but that it closed down. Apparently it was mostly a bouldering gym, and though it had a sport wall it had very little height. So it makes sense that it would not do well with more mainstream OC customers.
Rockreation does a lot of business with the mom & kids segment. Likewise I'd suggest your gym be sure to accommodate the same crowd with lots of classes and whatever it is that rockreation offers for them.
Mom & kids eat that stuff up and 75% of the time I"m in there I see groups of them.
Again kind of assuming you know something of OC area I speak of fairly affluent, people are very active, lots of moms and kids. It's amazing to me there's no local gym.
I know a mervyns closed down off the 5 and alicia, there's a Performance Bike store near by. That might be a good spot, it's near the freeway, and would pretty central to all the parts of OC I'm suggesting you target (Irvine, Lake Forest, Tustin, Aliso Viejo, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Niguel).
The next closest gym to the OC'ers is Rock City Climbing http://www.rockcityclimbing.com/ in anaheim hills. But that's also very far away. It's mostly a bouldering gym and its crowd is mostly high schoolers from what I understand.
Next after that is Hanger 18 in Riverside even further away 45 mins min. That's quite a good gym though from what I hear, I think there are two in Riverside.
If we're gonna drive to Riverside though may as well go to Joshua tree only about another hour away.
You might also consider offering a spin class. Local gym spin classes, are always completely overrun. They are very high demand and hard to get into, cops have had to be called for people fighting over bikes, desk clerks just cringe when people come in to sign up for spin class - they just know not everyone can in there's likely to be some drama.
Phone around, or stop by some of the local 24 hours fitness classes and probe about the spin classes and you'll see what I mean. Mommie types love those as well I'd say about 85% of class is typically women mix of younger and older.
Key thing with the spin classes is to get a good instructor with good music.
Don't get the weird guy, or older out of shape looking women who wants to play lionel ritchie and stuff.
Hope that helps and hope to see you out here, we need you!
(This post was edited by ocfella on Apr 2, 2009, 2:38 PM)
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kletter1mann
Apr 3, 2009, 12:27 PM
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Registered: Oct 24, 2004
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mythicaldanger wrote: Hey there everyone, I already have my bussiness plan, the blueprints are underway for it, and I am working on the financing part of it this yr.
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keinangst
Apr 3, 2009, 1:19 PM
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kletter1mann wrote: mythicaldanger wrote: Hey there everyone, I already have my bussiness plan, the blueprints are underway for it, and I am working on the financing part of it this yr. Something's bass-ackwards here. How can you have any kind of meaningful business plan and blueprints underway if you don't know where you'll be or what kind of site you'll have? Both are compeltely dependent on local demographics, markets, costs, etc.
My thought exactly. The cornerstone of any retail business plan is WHERE. Without that, nothing else can be really projected.
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matterunomama
Apr 4, 2009, 2:53 PM
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Fishing?
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Rudmin
Apr 8, 2009, 4:30 PM
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Registered: Mar 29, 2009
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What you want to do is take this map of existing rock gyms (http://www.indoorclimbing.com/map/) and plot it over top of the latest US census data (http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html). For any given point, you can take the area defined by locations that are less than halfway between your point and an existing gym as a rough estimate of your share of the pie. To find the ideal points for any given state, you might need to work out some algorithms, and weight the population data against any known correlations of where rock climbing is more popular. Populations within walking and bicycling distance might be weighted higher than those who have to make a driving trip. If you aren't good with technical stuff, you could probably pay an epidemiology or engineering or computer programming student (or me) to figure it out for you. Maybe they could even use it as part of their coursework.
(This post was edited by Rudmin on Apr 8, 2009, 4:36 PM)
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