Climb Nashville announced this week their expansion into Fayetteville, Arkansas and a new operator, Threshold Climbing, also announced this week, that they are bringing a full-size climbing facility to Oklahoma City.
The new Climb Fayetteville facility is the third for owners Drew Sloss and his partner Lance Brock whom opened their first facility in Nashville, Tennessee in 2003 and their second in 2013. This new climbing gym is a joint venture with Fayetteville local businessman, Dennis Nelms. After visiting Northwest Arkansas with Nelms in late 2015, Sloss & Brock agreed that Fayetteville would be a great next place to share their love of climbing. “My wife is from Little Rock and so there is some natural synergy for us here personally,” wrote Sloss in a press release. He went on to say, “There is already a great outdoor community and with such easy access to outdoor sports like climbing, it seemed like a great fit.”
Expected to open in late 2016, Climb Fayetteville’s facility will feature more than 19,000 square feet of building space with 16,000 square feet of Walltopia-built climbing terrain. Nelms bought the 2.88-acre site in 2014 for $500,000 and told the NWA Business Journal that he expect to spend $3 million on the project which is being financed by Arvest Bank of Fayetteville and is expected to open later this year.
Fayetteville is a town of 78,960 people and is currently served by La Casa Pollo a small home-spun climbing gym.
Down in Oklahoma City, Threshold Climbing and Fitness broke ground on their 20,000 square foot building located on the outskirts of OKC. First-time gym operator John Tarkington, who is project manager for Threshold told OKCTalk.com, that Threshold will be a first-class facility and more elaborate than anything else in the state. It will also be the first climbing facility in Oklahoma to be designed and built new from the ground up. With a $2 million construction budge Tarkington hopes to be open by the end of the year.
The climbers of Oklahoma City as well as the 610,000 other people living there are currently served by Climb Up Bouldering gym as well as the silo climbing facility, Rocktown. Climb Up recently took over operations of Rocktown after the previous owner’s lease was not renewed.
Threshold and Climb Fayetteville represent a growing trend in the climbing industry: that is, climbing operators moving into traditionally under-represented metro areas. This is trend CBJ noted back in our 2014 Gyms and Trends annual analysis.
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