Urban Air
By Paul Natinsky
The COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult for businesses in general, but especially hard for some. Urban Air Trampoline & Adventure Park in Sterling Heights finds itself in the latter category. Owner Wes Ayar said his entertainment venue was finally able to open its doors on October 10, after 209 days closed.
Through the entertainment venue’s hiatus, Ayar has relied on the Paycheck Protection Program, other loans, leniency from his landlord and from the 130-location Urban Air franchise company.
Ayar has owned Urban Air since March 2019. The Chaldean News covered the Grand Opening in the 2019 October issue, when Ayar had high hopes for a booming business. The indoor adventure park offered a fun (and at the time, safe) environment for keeping kids occupied.
About 30 percent of Urban Air’s footprint is trampoline attractions. The park also features a rock-climbing wall, bumper cars, ropes course, virtual reality experience, zip line and other activities.
Urban Air provides year-round indoor amusements. On its website, the company describes itself as “the ultimate indoor playground” for families. It hosts children’s birthday parties and touts a more varied and expansive presentation than typical indoor trampoline parks.
The company has been on an upward trajectory, voted Best Gym In America for Kids by Shape Magazine, Best Place To Take Energetic Kids and Best Trampoline Parks.
While now open, Ayar says the 450-capacity park is now limited to 120. Open day passes that allowed patrons to come and go have given way to scheduled time blocks. Mask wearing and social distancing are in full effect, as is enhanced sanitation, which required hiring an additional employee.
Urban Air faces a stiff challenge to profitability under current COVID protocols. Ayar says almost all of the 130 franchises across the country re-opened ahead of those in Michigan, and began recovering profits as pandemic protocols loosened in other states.
“Our hope is to ramp up, little by little,” Ayar said. He, too, hopes slowly to return to profitability, but says he would need to operate at 50 percent capacity, at least, and sell out all of the time slots available.
“With the general public there are two things right now. A) Most people still don’t know we’re open and B) The people who know we are open are still not coming because they are not yet comfortable, and we completely understand that.”
Ayar is working hard to get the word out that Urban Air is open, clean and safe. Urban Air is working with a company on “hyper-local” marketing and hitting social media hard, while the franchise puts out national ads.
In addition to attracting customers, Urban Air’s future depends to a significant extent on the rules it must follow going forward, particularly regarding capacity.
“Twenty-five percent just doesn’t get us anywhere because of what our rent is and what our expenses are. Twenty-five percent capacity just wouldn’t allow us to make any money or break even,” says Ayar. He says the business can only sustain itself under the current rules for a month or two, without a substantial influx of new money.
If there is no change in state rules governing capacity, will the business be able to continue?
“That’s a really open-ended question. If my partner and I are willing to refinance our homes and take that money and put it into the business, we can make the business float. But as far as the business itself, a month, two months might be all the business could withstand with the current level of capacity and the (the other added costs and restrictions),” says Ayar.
Changes at least in process are taking place at the state level. A recent court ruling has shifted decision making on Michigan’s COVID precautions from exclusively under the control of the governor to a status more inclusive of the state’s legislature. It remains to be seen what effect the move will have on businesses limited by current rules.
“At the capacity that we’re at, we would have to run our business close to perfect to just get to a break-even point every month with rent, with our loans and our payroll and our insurance,” says Ayar.
When we talked, Ayar said Urban Air had been open three days. “The experience for the guests seemed to be positive. We didn’t have any guests who had anything negative to say, so that was a big plus for us.”
For now, trampoline and adventure parks join the ranks of re-opened restaurants, hair salons and recently re-opened movie theaters trying to figure out how to serve their customers, pay their employees and earn a living as they wait for rules changes that allow them to increase their bottom lines.
