Long Beach Rising
Long Beach, CA
Specs: 17,000-square-foot bouldering gym located inside a historic landmark building (constructed in 1926) known as “The Packard,” originally used as an automotive showroom. The space also features weights, two studio spaces, and an aerobic area. Training boards, lockers, showers, and saunas also fill out the facility—with a cafe planned for inclusion in the front lobby.
Walls: Vertical Solutions
Flooring: Habit Climbing
CRM Software: Approach
Website: longbeachrising.com
In Their Words: “I was a youth coach for a long time, and I was [at the Monona Terrace] in Madison, Wisconsin, for Bouldering Nationals [in 2016]. And they announced that year that it was official that climbing was going to be included in the 2020 Olympics. I suddenly started looking at it all a little differently. I looked around and realized, “This sport doesn’t even know what’s happening to it—what’s about to happen to it!” Then I slowly put a business plan together with the help of friends and family.
“Things take off when you find a building. You can play around a lot with the loose aspects of your business, but until you have square footage and a location, and demographics, your business plan is just an idea. So finding the building was everything. It was luck—I was in Long Beach [California], it was the second building I looked at. My realtor said the building was deemed ‘historic,’ which meant I could inherent ‘grandfathered’ leniances from the city and the building comes with a unique character. So, I thought, ‘That’s really interesting!’”
— Grayston Leonard, Founder
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