It was recently announced that Movement Climbing, Yoga & Fitness purchased four Summit facilities in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Gyms included in the acquisition were Summit Grapevine (the newest and largest of the Summit facilities), Summit Plano, and bouldering-focused gyms Summit Denton and Summit Fort Worth. (The other Summit gyms—Summit Dallas, in Texas, and Summit Norman and Summit OKC, in Oklahoma—were not part of the acquisition; Summit Dallas will be closing after April 30, per Movement’s website.)
Jeremy Levitt, Movement’s CEO, said in a press release, “We’re extremely excited to be expanding our presence in Dallas. The Summit team has done an incredible job creating a strong climbing community and I am thrilled that they will be joining the Movement team.”
Movement (and, by extension, its parent company, El Cap) was already the United States’ largest network of climbing gyms prior to this deal with Summit; the acquisition of these four Texas gyms puts the total number of Movement properties at 24. It is part of an expansion trend for the climbing gym chain that dates back several years, with first the Earth Treks and Planet Granite merger in 2017, followed by the acquisition of the Movement Climbing + Fitness gyms in 2019. In 2021, the three gym brands owned by El Cap unified under the Movement branding umbrella. A 25th Movement gym—located in the Centennial area of the Denver, Colorado, metropolitan area—is expected to open in 2024.
Of note is that Movement also acquired the famed Team Texas youth program as part of the deal, as well as the team training facility, Summit Carrollton. According to the aforementioned press release, Team Texas—founded in 1996 by Kyle Clinkscales, who was the team’s head coach for many years and is now the CEO and a co-owner of Summit—is the longest-running youth climbing team in the nation. In total, the program has won 30 Youth National Team Championships over the years.
“Movement’s CEO, Jeremy Levitt, started climbing in the late ’90s at Exposure, which is now the Team Texas training center in Carrollton. Jeremy grew up in the DFW climbing community, was a Team Texas athlete, and we know he believes in it just as much as we do,” said Clinkscales. “Movement will build on and strengthen the amazing community that Summit has fostered over the last 20+ years.”
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