Taking the Leap: National Trampoline Park Business to Quadruple Locations
by: Lou Hirsh | CoStar News
Experiential retailers are expanding across the United States, and Big Air Trampoline Park is no different, with plans for a significant jump in locations over the next two years.
The Irvine, California-based company currently operates eight family-friendly entertainment centers in five states and is looking to add 25 U.S. locations, primarily through franchising. Big Air tapped brokerage JLL to field potential sites, expected to average between 15,000 and 35,000 square feet, that can house Big Air components that typically include a trampoline court, foam park and dodgeball and basketball dunk courts.
Big Air joins numerous other companies now growing their footprints at neighborhood strip centers and other venues with owners who find themselves filling vacancies with increasing frequency as chain retailers shut stores and otherwise downsize their brick-and-mortar presence in the face of online shopping’s ascendance.
Landlords are now turning to tenants offering entertainment, social interaction and other activities not available through shopping apps. Those growing nonstore occupiers now include companies like KidZania, which offers career-oriented activities for young customers and their families; Punch Bowl Social, with bowling lanes and on-site restaurants and lounges; and TopGolf, with indoor golf-swing simulators, driving ranges and dining options.
There are also upscale gym chains such as Equinox; pop-up curated experiences including the Museum of Ice Cream; thrill-seeker attractions such as iFly Indoor Skydiving; along with rock-climbing centers, competitive ax-throwing venues and several competitors in Big Air’s trampoline space.
Jared Davis, vice president at JLL’s Irvine office, told CoStar News that Big Air will be flexible on the size of future locations, which like prior openings could take place in spaces occupying all or parts of vacated big-box store sites. One dimension requirement will likely be less flexible for a trampoline-focused business.
"They will need to have a clearance height of around 18 feet," Davis said. "The customers do bounce high there."
Davis said Big Air’s location strategy will focus on secondary, smaller cities within major metropolitan markets. These suburban areas tend to have strong enough current customer demand to fuel an early entrant in the market, but are not large enough to encourage competitors to barge in later.
Prior Big Air openings in California, for instance, have been in cities such as Buena Park; in a Walmart-anchored retail center near Anaheim in Orange County; and the Inland Empire city of Corona in western Riverside County. Other current locations include Hiram, Georgia; Branson, Missouri; and Spartanburg and Greenville, South Carolina.
According to its website, upcoming openings are planned in the cities of Garner, North Carolina; Alpharetta, Georgia; and Las Colinas, Texas. The privately held Big Air was founded in 2012 and does not report financial data.
"For the landlords, they know this is something that tends to be internet-resistant," JLL’s Davis said. "They know it’s a trend that’s going to last and they worry less about how long that tenant is going to be there and when they will have to fill the space again."
Big Air President Kevin Odekirk, part of an executive team with a combined 30 years in the amusement park industry, said the company has a mission to create an "active adventure park" indoors.
The Big Air venues tend to be established in retail hubs with other nearby dining or other entertainment elements, in locations quickly accessible to residential neighborhoods. They host events like children’s birthday parties. And Davis said the concept has worked in settings with diverse household incomes and other demographics.
"Moms like it because it’s not just spending time with the kids, but it’s something that’s active," Davis said. "Kids come home at the end of the day exhausted — they’ve gotten plenty of exercise."
In a 2019 national report, brokerage Cushman & Wakefield noted that the trend toward experience-based retail occupiers has staying power, and is much more than a knee-jerk reaction to a challenged landscape for traditional chain retailers.
Other factors driving the trend include consumer preferences for venues with live-work-play elements on the same property, and more options geared to health and wellness, along with shared social experiences.
"We suggest that the increased drive for experience-based retail reflects a deeper economic trend with implications that go far beyond shopping centers and the shifting tastes of millennial consumers," said Garrick Brown, Cushman’s vice president of Americas Retail Services. "It is a trend that plays out most visibly in the retail arena because of the current disruption in the retail industry."