Trampoline Park Rent: What $24.79 a Sq Ft Actually Costs

A 30,000 sq ft trampoline park (2,787 m²) pays about $743,700 a year in base rent at the U.S. average retail asking rent. The same floor area inside an industrial building in Phoenix, the most expensive of the three industrial markets we checked, would cost about $392,400.

The trampolines are identical in both cases. The difference is $351,300 a year, and it is neither a mistake nor a discount. It is the price of other people’s customers.

Site decisions in this industry usually get argued on base rent per square foot. That is the least useful number in the lease, because it says nothing about how much demand the site has to produce to justify itself. A retail-center rent is only cheap if the center delivers the admissions that pay for it.

This article converts published rent benchmarks into three usable figures: the revenue per square foot a site must carry, the admissions per day that go straight to the landlord, and the throughput a location has to prove before it is worth signing.

The rent data below is Q2 2026 asking rent from CBRE and Cushman & Wakefield. The occupancy-cost benchmark comes from ICSC’s published commentary. Nothing here is a forecast, and no operator’s revenue is used or implied.

---

1. The rent gap in published numbers

Two property types matter for this decision. Retail space brings foot traffic and a landlord who sets your opening hours. Industrial space brings clear height, loading and a rent that barely registers against revenue.

Both are quoted in dollars per square foot per year, which makes the comparison look simpler than it is. Retail rents are usually quoted on a triple-net basis, so the figure excludes property tax, insurance and common-area maintenance. Industrial rents in most U.S. markets are quoted the same way. Check the basis before comparing anything.

The two retail figures differ by 3.5% because the firms track different inventories. Treat that as measurement noise rather than as a negotiating signal. The gap that matters is between retail and industrial, and it runs from 1.9 times in Phoenix to 5.2 times in Memphis.

Phoenix is the useful comparison, not Memphis. Phoenix industrial vacancy was 9.6% in the same quarter, above the 6.5% national figure, and its rent is the highest of the three industrial readings here. A project that cannot make the arithmetic work at $13.08 will not be rescued by hunting for a cheaper industrial market. It will be rescued by a different site type.

One more figure belongs beside these, even though it is not a rent. U.S. industrial completions fell to 47.9 million sq ft in Q2 2026, the lowest quarterly total since 2016, while vacancy dropped to 6.5%. Cheap industrial space is not becoming easier to find, so the discount in the table is a snapshot rather than a permanent condition.

---

2. Converting rent into admissions per day

Rent is paid in dollars and earned in admissions, so the conversion runs through one number you control: net revenue per admission. That is ticket revenue plus in-venue spend, minus sales tax and booking fees, divided by admissions. Use your own figure. The mechanics are the same either way.

Annual base rent = asking rent per sq ft × leasable sq ft
Rent per day = annual base rent ÷ 365
Admissions to cover rent = rent per day ÷ net revenue per admission

A 30,000 sq ft park at the U.S. average retail asking rent owes $2,038 a day before it pays a single wage. At $22 of net revenue per admission, that is 93 admissions a day handed to the landlord. At $30 per admission it is 68.

The number to carry into a site meeting is the gap between rows. Moving from Phoenix-level industrial rent into average retail rent costs $351,300 a year at this size. At $22 per admission, that is 44 extra admissions every day of the year.

Read it as a demand claim, not a cost claim. The retail site is not overpriced if it produces 44 more admissions a day than the alternative. It is overpriced if it produces 20, because the other 24 come out of margin. Most leasing arguments skip this step and compare rent per square foot instead, which is how projects end up in the wrong building.

Two adjustments belong here. Party and group bookings raise net revenue per admission sharply and lower the admissions required, so a park with a strong party book can carry more rent per square foot than a walk-in park of the same size. Membership and multi-hour passes do the opposite: they lower revenue per head while raising visit frequency, which moves the burden onto volume rather than price. Run the table twice, once for each mix.

---

3. The ratio test: how much revenue per square foot the site must carry

A second test comes from retail rather than from this industry. ICSC’s published commentary on tenant retention quotes the head of Woodmont Co.’s asset services division putting the erosion point for occupancy costs at 12% to 13% of sales, counting base rent plus taxes, insurance and common-area charges. Above that line, a retail tenant starts looking for a way out.

The benchmark was built on retail tenants, not on trampoline parks, and nobody has published an equivalent for this industry. Used carefully, it still answers a useful question: how much revenue per square foot does a given rent demand before you have opened?

Required revenue per sq ft = total occupancy cost per sq ft ÷ target occupancy ratio
Required visits per sq ft = required revenue per sq ft ÷ net revenue per admission

At the U.S. average retail asking rent, a trampoline park needs roughly $207 of revenue per square foot to hold occupancy cost at the 12% line. Test that against your own model. If your underwriting produces $150 per square foot, average retail rent is not expensive. It is impossible, and no amount of negotiating closes a $57 gap.

The ratio shows no efficiency gain from scale. At a constant rent per square foot and a constant revenue per admission, visits per square foot stay at 9.4 whatever the building size, so a 15,000 sq ft park needs 386 visits a day to clear the 12% line and a 50,000 sq ft park needs 1,286. A larger site wins on absolute traffic and on capital cost per square foot, not on the rent line.

What this model came from: published asking rents from CBRE and Cushman & Wakefield for Q2 2026, plus ICSC’s 2023 commentary on occupancy costs. The admissions and revenue figures are derived from those inputs and are not reported by any operator. No trampoline park’s lease, revenue or attendance appears in this article, because none of that is public.

---

4. What the data does and does not show

This section decides whether the arithmetic above is useful or misleading. Five limits matter.

Asking rent is not effective rent. Published asking rents exclude tenant-improvement allowances, free-rent periods and graduated escalations. A center quoting $30 with a $40 per square foot improvement allowance and six months abated is not the same product as a center quoting $26 with nothing. Effective rent is what you compare, and it only becomes visible in a term sheet.

There is no public dataset of trampoline park leases. We are not going to pretend otherwise. The figures here are market-level proxies for space types, not comparables from signed deals in this industry. A 30,000 sq ft box in a failing center may trade at half the market average, and a box beside a dominant anchor may trade above it.

The 12% to 13% benchmark came from retail tenants. General merchandise and apparel businesses operate at gross margins a trampoline park does not share, and their occupancy tolerance reflects that. The benchmark is a test, not a rule. Use it to compare sites against each other, not to declare a lease unaffordable on its own.

The industrial figures describe big-box logistics. Small-bay units suitable for a 20,000 to 40,000 sq ft conversion sit in a different submarket, usually tighter and usually priced above the market average. The Memphis figure of $4.75 is a market average across all size bands, not a quote for the unit you want.

Correlation is not cause in either direction. Parks in shopping centers do not earn more because they are in shopping centers. They may earn more because the operators who can afford shopping-center rent are better capitalised and better at marketing. The arithmetic here prices a location decision. It does not explain performance.

One thing the data does show clearly: the spread between retail and industrial rent is far larger than the spread between industrial markets. Site type dominates site selection within a type, and that ordering should shape how much time you spend on each.

---

5. What the cheaper building charges you instead

A warehouse is cheap for reasons that do not disappear when you sign. Each one is a capital item, and the rent saving has to absorb all of them before it counts as a saving.

5.1 Clear height is a design constraint, not a preference

What it is The usable distance from finished floor to the lowest obstruction, which includes sprinkler heads, ductwork, light fittings and structure. It is not the same as the eaves height a landlord quotes.

What it decides Which attractions can exist at all. A trampoline court is a volume product: the height is set by the tallest element in the plan, and a low box forces the whole layout down a tier rather than shaving a few centimetres. Retail boxes built for apparel were not designed around that requirement, and mall inline units are the worst case because the ceiling is often a shared service zone.

What to verify Measure clear height under the sprinkler heads and under the lowest duct, in the actual unit, with your own laser. Then check that figure against your attraction list rather than against a generic rule of thumb. ASTM F2970 governs commercial trampoline courts and their immediate surroundings, not the structural clearance of a building.

5.2 The floor was designed for a different load

What it is A slab and frame sized for uniform storage loads, not for repeated dynamic point loads at frame legs and pit edges.

What it decides Whether the equipment needs a secondary steel frame, a load-spreading platform, or a review by the building’s own engineer. Each of those is a five-figure item in most markets, and each adds weeks before installation can start.

What to verify Ask the landlord for structural drawings and the permitted floor loading, then have your engineer check both against the equipment layout. A landlord who cannot produce drawings is telling you something about the building.

5.3 Change of use is the hidden permit

A warehouse and a trampoline park fall into different occupancy classes in most building codes. Reclassifying a unit for public assembly usually triggers a new fire strategy: sprinkler coverage, exit count, exit travel distance, egress width and emergency lighting all get re-examined against a much higher occupant load. This is the most common reason a cheap conversion stalls.

Zoning is a separate question and often a stricter one. Many industrial districts permit storage, light manufacturing and trade counters while excluding public assembly and retail use entirely. A unit can be perfect in every physical dimension and still be unusable, and no amount of design work fixes a use the municipality will not permit.

Ask for the permitted use in writing before spending anything on design. If a variance or conditional-use permit is required, price the timeline and the professional fees into the comparison, because you will carry rent through that period.

5.4 Services, comfort and neighbours

HVAC A trampoline park combines a large air volume with high occupant density and a great deal of latent moisture. Plant sized for occasional warehouse occupancy will not hold temperature or humidity on a Saturday, and the fix is capacity rather than controls.

Parking and drop-off Peak demand does not spread evenly across the day. It clusters around birthday party changeovers, so a parking ratio that satisfies a code minimum can still fail at eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning. Shopping centers absorb that for you, and it is part of what the rent buys.

Noise Impact noise travels through structure. Retail neighbours tolerate it differently from residential or office neighbours, and an industrial park with a residential boundary generates complaints a shopping center never would.

Add these up honestly and the 5.2-times gap between Memphis industrial rent and the retail average narrows. It does not close. A conversion that needs a new fire strategy, a structural frame and additional plant capacity is not competing at $4.75 per square foot; it is competing at $4.75 plus the capital cost of becoming a public building.

---

6. The rest of the lease: what else sits inside the number

Base rent is the headline. Total occupancy cost is what belongs in the ratio from section 3, and it is almost always larger.

Triple-net pass-throughs. Property tax, insurance and common-area maintenance are billed on top of base rent. In a shopping center, common-area charges also carry the cost of the thing you are buying: parking, landscaping, security, marketing. In an industrial park they are smaller, but never zero.

Reassessment risk. A change of use can trigger a property tax reassessment, and under a net lease the increase passes to you. Ask what the assessed value is today and what triggers a reassessment, then model the higher figure instead of the current one.

Percentage rent. Many retail leases carry a share of gross sales above a breakpoint. The natural breakpoint is base rent divided by the percentage rate:

Natural breakpoint = annual base rent ÷ percentage rate
Worked example: $743,700 ÷ 0.06 = $12,395,000 in annual sales

The 6% rate in that example is a common retail range, not a term from any specific lease. What matters is the shape of the exposure. If your breakpoint lands near a realistic sales level, the landlord is taking a share of your upside, and that belongs in the comparison against a flat industrial rent.

Term, allowance and abatement. A ten-year term with a generous improvement allowance can be cheaper than a five-year term with none, because the allowance is capital you do not have to raise. Compare total occupancy cost across the full term, not year one.

Exclusivity and co-tenancy. In a center, ask for a radius restriction on competing trampoline or family entertainment uses, and for a co-tenancy clause tied to the anchors that generate your walk-in traffic. An anchor closure is the specific event that turns an expensive retail rent into a bad one.

Restoration and exit. Industrial leases often require you to remove alterations at exit, which for a trampoline park means the pit, the frame anchors and any secondary steel. Get that obligation in writing and price it before signing.

---

7. Three site types and the test each one has to pass

The rent table and the ratio test combine into a short set of questions. They differ by site type, because what the rent buys differs.

The middle row is where most new builds land, and it is underwritten the most loosely. An anchor box in a neighborhood center prices between the two extremes, which makes it feel safe while carrying the risks of both: you pay real rent and you still depend on somebody else’s traffic.

---

8. Decision rules, and three things to do before you sign

Five numbers decide a site. Total occupancy cost per square foot rather than base rent. Revenue per square foot required at your target ratio. Admissions per day that go to rent. Measured clear height in the actual unit. And the capital cost of making the building legal for assembly use.

Rule one. If the visits per square foot in table 3 exceed what the trade area can plausibly deliver on a Tuesday in February, the site fails whatever the rent. Peak Saturday traffic flatters every pro forma.

Rule two. If the conversion needs a new fire strategy, a structural frame or added plant capacity, add that capital to the rent comparison before choosing. The cheap building is only cheap after those are priced.

Rule three. If the use is not permitted today, treat the entitlement timeline as a cost and a risk, not as paperwork. A twelve-month permit process inside a ten-year lease is a material term.

1. Measure the box yourself. Take a laser to the unit and record clear height under sprinklers, under ducts and under structure, plus the column grid and the permitted floor loading. Compare that against the layout you actually want, and see the reference layout for a 22,000 sq ft park for how much floor each zone consumes.

2. Run the ratio test on your own numbers. Use your revenue per admission, your target occupancy ratio and the total occupancy cost from the term sheet. If the required revenue per square foot looks unreachable, the site is the problem, not the negotiation. The franchise cost comparison shows how much of the initial budget is committed before rent starts.

3. Check the compliance route before the design. Fire strategy, egress and permitted use sit above layout in the decision order, and a layout drawn before those are settled usually gets redrawn. Our safety and standards page lists the frameworks that apply by market, and the design-to-delivery process starts with the building rather than the equipment.

Get a free design and quote →

Send us the unit’s dimensions, clear height and floor plan and we will tell you which attractions fit before you commit to a lease. That conversation costs nothing and usually saves a redesign. Start with the site review request, or look at the commercial trampoline range to see what each attraction needs in plan and section.

---

FAQ

Is it cheaper to open a trampoline park in a warehouse than in a shopping center?

On rent, yes, by a wide margin: $4.75 to $13.08 per square foot in the industrial markets we checked, against $24.79 for retail on average. On total cost, not necessarily. A warehouse usually needs a fire strategy review, a structural check for dynamic loads, added HVAC capacity and a permitted change of use, and those items consume part of the saving before the first visitor arrives.

What percentage of revenue should rent be for a trampoline park?

No published benchmark exists for this industry. The retail figure from ICSC puts the erosion point at 12% to 13% of sales for total occupancy cost, including taxes, insurance and common-area charges. Use it to compare sites rather than as a pass or fail line, and test a lower ratio if your revenue per square foot is thin.

How many visitors a day does a trampoline park need to cover its rent?

Divide annual base rent by 365, then divide again by net revenue per admission. At the U.S. average retail asking rent, a 30,000 sq ft park needs about 93 admissions a day at $22 each just to pay rent, before wages, utilities or equipment. The same park at Phoenix industrial rent needs about 49.

What ceiling height does a trampoline park need?

There is no single number, and any supplier who quotes one without seeing your attraction list is guessing. Required height is set by the tallest element in the layout, which changes with the mix of courts, climbing, slides and drop attractions. Measure clear height under sprinklers and ducts in the actual unit, then design to that measurement rather than to a rule of thumb.

Can an industrial unit be converted into an indoor playground?

Physically, often yes. Legally, it depends on two separate approvals. Zoning decides whether public assembly or retail use is permitted in that district at all. Building code decides what fire strategy, egress and services the new occupancy class requires. Check both before spending on design, and price the timeline into the lease comparison.

---

Sources

1. CBRE, “Retail Availability Holds Steady as Rents Rise, U.S. Retail Q2 2026”, 29 July 2026. cbre.com
2. Cushman & Wakefield, “U.S. Retail Market Remains Resilient in Q2 as Vacancy Holds Near Historic Lows”, 15 July 2026. cushmanwakefield.com
3. CBRE Research, “Phoenix Industrial Figures Q2 2026”, asking lease rate $1.09 per sq ft per month NNN. mktgdocs.cbre.com
4. CBRE Research, “Memphis Industrial Figures Q2 2026”, average direct asking rate $4.75 per sq ft. mktgdocs.cbre.com
5. CBRE, “Midwest U.S. Industrial Figures Q2 2026”, overall asking lease rate $7.65 per sq ft. cbre.com
6. CBRE, “Q2 2026 U.S. Industrial & Logistics Market Report”, 29 July 2026, vacancy 6.5% and completions of 47.9 million sq ft. cbre.com
7. ICSC, “Why Tenants Stay at Marketplaces, and Why They Go”, 19 April 2023, occupancy costs approaching 12% to 13% of sales. icsc.com