New climbing gym in SLC?

new gym announcement. millcreek location near REI

momentumclimbing.com/

Yeah Spencer, I started hearing info about this a couple months ago and gave up on the idea after I heard this. I meant to post something on here, but I forgot.

This new Momentum location sounds awesome though. 50' lead walls, co-designed by Sharma, membership works at both locations for the same price, and most importantly so much closer to my house. I can't believe it took this long for SLC to get something like this. About freakin time. Fall can't come soon enough.

Tim Golden wrote:Fall can't come soon enough.

I hope you mean "Fall can't come soon enough because that's the best time to climb in the amazing wasatch, and then afterwards during wintertime there's also going to be new plastic to climb."

That's what I'm going to assume you meant.

I think a bar would be awesome in a gym, although I bring my own beer most of the time anyway. I wonder what impact that would have on insurance rates.

I wouldn't worry about the insurance. Getting a liquor license will be more daunting.

PT

Seems like the new Momentum location rumors have now been substantiated, and I too have heard rumors of the Front expanding. I've heard from a couple people that it'll be something in the ballpark of a 90' lead wall, which would be pretty crazy. Also, I am an employee at the U of U Outdoor Recreation Program, and I can add that the U will be opening a new student life center in a couple years that will include a climbing wall. I've seen the blue prints for it, and the wall will be very nice for a University but probably a little smaller than your average gym. They're breaking ground next month, and it's set to open fall of 2014. Just a consideration that you may lose part of that "U students" market if you choose to open a new gym.

That being said, I'd be psyched to help you out in any way (I have a bit of routesetting experience), and it sounds like you have the right vision in mind!

sevrdhed, of course being outside > plastic. That's a given.

Does anyone have any more info on The Front's expansion rumors? 90' lead walls doesn't sound right. That would be an extremely tall building. Would it be at their current location? I don't really see where they can expand in that building.

They're procured the building to the south so the two will become one.

youtube.com/watch?v=FA5jsa1…

If the gym were significantly closer to downtown SLC than Momentum and of a similar quality to the climbing in Momentum, I think you would do well. I have friends up in the downtown area who don't gym climb because Momentum is too far away and the other options aren't that great. If you could get real estate just downhill from U of U, I think you'd do really well. I think you could cut out the northern-valley portion of Momentum's membership if you're gym is nice.

I think there is a huge market for college students who want to save on gas and time. If a gym is less than 10 minutes away, that could be the difference between getting a pass or not. Plus, college kids love to do climbing gyms for dates--at least in Utah.

At least that's the sense I get at the Quarry down in Provo. It's situated right between UVU and BYU and I think quite a bit of their business comes from college-age kids living in college-type housing.

I think the real key is that the gym would be in the same ballpark as momentum for diversity of terrain and quality, otherwise you wouldn't be differentiating yourself enough from the other option.

Also, I would cut out the workout/weight-lifting stuff that Momentum has. You could cut down on your capital investment and overhead by focusing on just climbing-related training and terrain. Maybe that way you could offer membership at a lower--but still profitable--price-point, attract more college-budget people, and take some of the other gyms current market share. No workout/weight area means less square footage of overhead and less upfront cost. Plus you're not trying to straddle two markets that don't necessarily have a ton of overlap; i.e., when I've been at Momentum, I've never seen more than a couple people in the workout area. To me the lifting/treadmill crowd seems to have a pretty distinct culture from the climbing crowd, enough that people who want to lift and run in gyms will probably get a membership to 24 or Golds.

Anyway, just kinda shooting from the hip here. If you're really serious, you might want to think about doing some basic market research to get answers based on data rather than speculation--surveys, etc.