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jesta
Sep 9, 2013, 10:01 PM
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Registered: Feb 27, 2013
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So to start off I will be getting access to a 2,500 sqft storefront building soon, it's been in the family for awhile and can't ever seem stay leased. The area used to be rough, but is slowly being gentrified, all new infrastructure in the last year and many new businesses popping up. The area is also 5 minutes from a University without any climbing, but there is another climbing gym 15 minutes away that isn't ran amazingly (whole different discussion). The city is roughly 150,000 with a metro total of about 500,000.
So obviously from the title, I'm thinking about taking the building over and renovating it into a bouldering gym. But the one thing that is holding me back at this point is that the ceiling is between 12'-6" and 14'-0".
In my mind this is the very minimal of what I would want to work with. So convince me, am I justified in my worry, or is this ample space to work with?
Thanks for any and all responses.
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djlachelt
Sep 11, 2013, 12:45 PM
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Registered: Sep 26, 2005
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12' walls are a bare minimum in my opinion. Can you build the walls in the 14' section, and use the 12' area for front desk, bathroom, etc?
Don't forget that the floor padding takes up some of your height, and if the walls go up to the ceiling then you can't really climb to the top of the wall without hitting your head. Also, your lighting may hang down from the ceiling and subtract from the available head space.
In my opinion your members are always going to be frustrated with the limited offering. There are so many modern gyms cropping up around the country, so most climbers are exposed to some pretty nice facilities. They know what's possible and will wish that they had the same thing.
My worry would be that you'll grow the business and then someone else will come along and build a full service gym that takes all of your business.
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jesta
Sep 11, 2013, 1:08 PM
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Registered: Feb 27, 2013
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Right in mine too, seems doable, but at the point that I'm not sure that it would just be wasted.
The building is sloped on the long end, its a 100' by 20' building. The front is 14' clear and slopes down to 12' clear in the middle, then the floor steps down so there is another 14' clear and slopes back down to 12' again. So everything would on average going to be 13', some higher some lower.
In reply to: In my opinion your members are always going to be frustrated with the limited offering. There are so many modern gyms cropping up around the country, so most climbers are exposed to some pretty nice facilities. They know what's possible and will wish that they had the same thing.
And this, this is I think the best thought. Along with the other gym I'm not sure how viable it would be.
I appreciate the response though, I was doing my best to see how I could shoehorn my idea to fit a space that would essentially be free and a small enough volume to keep the area fully conditioned all year round unlike some others in the area.
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