I have some ideas. It’s not easy to start a new gym. You need to find a suitable building: enough space, enough height, affordable, and - if you can find all those - in a decent location. You need a bunch of money, from your own savings, friends/family/partners, and/or the bank. And if you can do all that, you may be inclined to build the gym near where you live, if that happens to be a fruitful market for a new one.

As I got started on my new gym, and reached out to all the owners of existing gyms nearby, I learned that there are many people thinking about doing this. Some of the gym owners get a few inquiries a week from aspiring gym owners. The vast majority of those people don’t manage to overcome the obstacles of getting the building & the money.

I’m building mine in Downsview Park because that’s where I found a great location & building. But I looked first in Downsview Park because it’s right near where I live, and I had been thinking for years that it would be a good spot.

I believe there is room in the GTA for a few more gyms, even with the new ones that have sprung up recently. And the east end seems like a logical place (though I haven’t done a demographic analysis to know for sure). What it will take is simply for someone to take the initiative to make it happen, go look at buildings, and find a way to raise the considerable sum of money required to start the business. Or an alternative is to start a co-op, such as this one in San Luis Obispo: http://www.slo-opclimbing.org/. These seem to work best for bouldering gyms, where the logistics of building are a little simpler, and a lot of sweat equity can compensate for a smaller pool of capital.

It possible that an existing gym might expand to multiple locations. It’s happening in parts of the US (e.g. Touchstone or Planet Granite in California). I’m not sure how long a gym needs to operate successfully before they have the ability to go back to the bank for another round of financing to fund a new location. And my impression is most gym owners/managers have their hands so full looking after what they have already, that there is little bandwidth left for thinking about expansion.

What’s stopping you from doing it?

John Gross
Owner, True North Climbing Inc.