Q&A: Urban Air founder talks expansion
As shopping centers are looking for new entertainment tenants to attract customers, Urban Air Adventure Park is seizing on the opportunity and expanding its footprint.
The trampoline and adventure park chain, which offers activities for kids such as bumper cars, climbing walls, indoor skydiving, warrior course and more, recently opened its 200th location in Lawrence Township, N.J., just outside of Philadelphia. Founded in 2011 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the company began franchising in 2014 and is now looking to continue its growth.
Michael O. Browning Jr., founder of Urban Air and CEO of Urban Air’s parent company Unleashed Brands, recently spoke to Chain Store Age about the company’s expansion plans and what it brings to retail centers.
When you founded the brand, what did you seek to accomplish and how does Urban Air differentiate itself from other brands in the trampoline/adventure park category?
I was looking to create a place that would help kids celebrate special moments and to escape the world for a little bit and connect with other kids off screen through play. Although we started out just as a trampoline park, what I began to see was that there was no differentiation.
We take credit for inventing the adventure park concept. We began to rip out about 80% of the trampoline square footage and bring in non-trampoline based attractions that gave guests a different physical sensation. So whether they're flying in the air or speeding around on a go-kart or climbing a rock wall, it is a different sensation every time, and that diversified mix of attractions coupled with the atmosphere that we create makes us have a very differentiated experience.
What is the size range that Urban Air looks for when finding space for a new location?
There's a broad range in our portfolio. We have locations as small as 20,000 sq. ft. and we have locations as large as 100,000 sq. ft., but I would say that our sweet spot is between 20,000 and 40,000 sq. ft.
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(Image credit: Unleashed Brands) -
(Image credit: Unleashed Brands) -
(Image credit: Unleashed Brands) -
(Image credit: Unleashed Brands) -
(Image credit: Unleashed Brands)
Does each location vary as far as the attractions, or does it depend on how much space is available when opening a new location?
Every location has a base attraction package that is the same. Then, if we have additional square footage that we can take advantage of, we will add in additional attractions. Those attractions may vary from market to market because we will perform what we call a gap surplus analysis in the attraction space because we always want to bring something that is new and differentiated to the consumers that are in that particular market.
So if there's already laser tag in that market, we might not bring laser tag. If there's not indoor skydiving, we might bring indoor skydiving. We approach it in that manner so that we are bringing something truly unique to each market that we go into.
How many locations does Urban Air plan to open this year? Are there certain markets the company is eying for expansion?
This year, we will open around 30 Urban Air locations. Across all of our brands, we will open over 100. We're seeing a lot of expansion right now on the West Coast for Urban Air specifically.
There is a large opportunity in suburban towns, and we have a lot of units there, but we've demonstrated tremendous success in the smaller towns like Bryan-College Station, Texas. We can scale all the way up to what we would call “hyper-urban” locations. In Brooklyn, New York, our park is in an extremely dense area doing amazingly well, and we're working on additional leases up and around the city.
Has Urban Air seized on the recent spate of store closures to expand its footprint?
There's a ton of second generation space that's coming to the market from Party City and others. We can go into almost any space because we do in-house engineering and design. We don't try to fit a square peg into a round hole. We can be creative in every box.
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We're taking advantage of the available real estate with some of our sister brands as well. Whether it's an Urban Air taking down an entire space or combining two brands and bringing them into a space, we've been able to capitalize on some of the real estate that's available out there today.
What does Urban Air bring to the tenant mix at a given center?
We bring a lot of great traffic to centers from consumers who landlords want to come and shop at the other stores. As an example, we attract millennial parents who come to our facilities with three kids. When we're around other retail, we're a huge stimulus to shopping centers.
