Touchstone Climbing – Hyperion
Redwood City, California
Specs: Touchstone Climbing opened Hyperion, its 18th facility, on May 5th this year in Redwood City, California, a city between San Francisco and San Jose. The soon-to-be mixed-discipline climbing gym—with roped climbing amenities expected to be completed in 2026—opened just a few months before the gym chain celebrated its 30th anniversary. Touchstone owners Debra and Mark Melvin opened their first gym—Mission Cliffs in San Francisco—in 1995, back when they were thinking of operating just one or two climbing facilities, Touchstone’s 30th Anniversary video detailed. Since then, the team has gradually expanded the business throughout California, opening gyms in the San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Fresno areas.
According to Touchstone’s Marketing Director, Heather Bellgreen, “opening a new gym takes time.” Years can pass between the idea and opening, but because Touchstone has been operating gyms for over 30 years, Bellgreen said, it has helped that the team has metrics used “to assess demand and viability for a particular area, traffic and accessibility, [and] where the industry is moving.” She added, “There’s always risk involved, but all things considered, we still see the climbing industry as a growing one with room for more expansion.”
The team decided to move forward with developing a new gym in Redwood City after “looking for spaces in the South Bay for some time, as we realized it was an underserved area,” Bellgreen said, noting management was excited to find the current Hyperion location. “Redwood City is just beautiful, this space is amazing, and the location was ideal—it even has a park, Hoover Park, right across the street for those who want some outdoor time,” she elaborated. Touchstone found a pre-existing building that Bellgreen said had the requisite height, location, parking, accessibility and “beauty of the interior” to suit their vision. She also mentioned the team at Touchstone appreciates repurposing older buildings, “making something useful out of something that has fallen out of use,” while designing a unique space with “character and charm.”
Hyperion will feature 16,000 square feet of roped climbing surface on 40-foot roped walls—with a section for a 10-meter speed wall—once the project is fully completed. Currently, the gym features 10,700 square feet of bouldering wall surface split among 16-foot boulders, a Tension Board 2, a 2024 Moon Board and a Touchstone Board. Bellgreen described the Touchstone board as an “accessible introduction to board climbing” that has light-up holds on a 35-degree wall, which can be used with an app where climbers can create, rate and share climbs. Soon, the gym will also have fitness and yoga amenities, weight and cardio equipment, hangboards, campus boards and a pro shop.
For gym operators looking to expand, Bellgreen stated “being strategic is key,” adding that it’s “a different market than it was ten years ago, or even five, with a lot more saturation and competition.” She acknowledged that “this [competition] is great from a climbing perspective,” but added it can “make the business side a bit trickier.” In response, she recommended devoting more attention to reflecting on key questions before embarking on a new gym build. “What else is there in terms of businesses?” Bellgreen asks. “Maybe you don’t have a coffee shop in your gym, but is there one close by? A restaurant or brewery? Is the location accessible? Visible? Are there enough people nearby who have the means to pay the membership costs your business model requires? What’s the competition?” She said the answers to these questions will be different for each gym location, considering “the density of the area, the socioeconomics [and] the strictness or laxity of city regulations and enforcement,” and emphasized the importance of “taking your time to do the upfront research and analysis, and not just jumping at the ‘right building’ because it has high walls or a cool history.”
Walls: Walltopia
Flooring: Flashed
CRM Software: Redpoint HQ
Website: touchstoneclimbing.com/hyperion
Instagram: @HyperionClimbing
In Their Words: “Our goal is for every person walking through our doors—regardless of background, experience level or identity—to feel like they belong. Staff interactions are genuine and casual. We take safety very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and we want people to relax, enjoy themselves and have fun. We’re not a faceless corporation or private equity-backed chain. We’re still independently owned by a husband-and-wife team and rooted in the communities around our gyms. We invest back into those communities and prioritize local relationships… At the end of the day, what makes us special is really the communities that our gyms help foster. It’s the people in our gyms. We work hard to nurture all of this, but it’s really up to our members and users and how they decide to show up. For the most part, we just keep getting blown away by how awesome our communities are.” – Heather Bellgreen, Marketing Director at Touchstone
