Trampoline Park Opening 100 Days Late: $321,400 in Carry
Altitude Trampoline Park in Arlington, Texas, filed a completion date of 15 July 2026 with the state. Its grand opening ran from 23 October. The difference is 100 days.
A finished but silent building is not free. Rent, debt service, base utilities and a commissioning crew keep running while the doors stay shut, and none of them is producing a ticket.
On the 31,512 sq ft (2,928 m²) box recorded in that filing, the four lines add up to about $321,400 across the 100 days. That is 27% of the $1.2 million fit-out the same filing declares, spent before the first admission.
This article rebuilds that number from public inputs, shows every division, and hands you the same arithmetic for your own building. Two lines cannot be built from public records, and we say so where it matters.
1. What the filing records, and what it cannot tell you
The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation publishes architectural barriers filings for commercial projects. They are not construction contracts and they are not business plans. Each one records a registration date, a planned start, a planned completion, a floor area and an estimated cost for the work.
The Arlington entry registers on 19 February 2026, records a start date of 15 March, and gives a completion date of 15 July. The declared scope is an interior demolition of the previous tenant’s improvements followed by a tenant fit-out, on 31,512 sq ft, at an estimated $1.2 million. The review status is complete.
That works out to $38.08 per sq ft of declared fit-out. We compared that figure against other filings in the published breakdown of the Arlington fit-out, and it is a floor for the build rather than a total project cost.
The park announced its grand opening weekend as 23 to 25 October 2026. Between the declared completion and that weekend sits a gap of 100 days. The declared build itself was 122 days, so the gap is 82% of the construction period.
| Input | Value | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Floor area | 31,512 sq ft (2,928 m²) | TDLR filing TABS2026013038, registered 19 Feb 2026 |
| Declared fit-out | $1,200,000 | Same filing, estimated cost field |
| Declared completion | 15 Jul 2026 | Same filing, completion date field |
| Grand opening | 23 Oct 2026 | Park grand opening announcement for 23 to 25 Oct 2026 |
| Retail rent | $24.79 per sq ft per year | CBRE US retail figures, Q2 2026 |
| Bank prime rate | 7.00% | Federal Reserve H.15, 23 Oct 2026 |
| Rate ceiling above $350,000 | Prime plus 3.0 points | 13 CFR 120.214(d)(4) |
| Recreation attendant wage | $15.46 per hour, median | BLS OEWS, May 2025 |
| Benefits load, part-time | 1.25 times wages | BLS ECEC, June 2026 release |
| Electricity, US average | 14.47 cents per kWh | EIA Electric Power Monthly, August 2026 data |
| Public assembly intensity | 12.1 kWh per sq ft per year | EIA CBECS 2018, Table C22 |
Where this model came from: every input above is a published figure with a date attached. The assumptions sit between them, in four places only: rent commencement, crew size, utility load during commissioning and the loan structure. Each one is stated where it is used, and each one is tested later in this article.
2. Four lines that start before the first ticket
An opening delay does not create a new cost. It extends four costs that were already running, and the extension is where the money goes.
2.1 Rent runs on the lease calendar, not the opening calendar
What it is Rent commencement is a negotiated date in the lease, usually tied to handover or to a fixed calendar day, and it is rarely tied to the day you start trading.
What it decides Whether a delay is a rent event at all. If the landlord abated rent until opening, the largest line in this model disappears and the total falls from $22,501 a week to $7,478.
What to verify The exact trigger for commencement, the length of any abatement, and whether the abatement is expressed as a number of months or as a number of days after a milestone. We covered the rent mechanics separately in the comparison of retail and industrial rent for trampoline parks.
2.2 Debt service follows the draw schedule
What it is A construction facility draws as work is completed, so interest accrues on the balance rather than on the commitment. By the time a fit-out is physically finished, most of the money is usually out the door.
What it decides How much of the interest line is already at full weight when the slip happens. On a completed fit-out, assume the whole balance.
What to verify Whether amortization starts at first disbursement or after a completion test. The ceiling for an SBA 7(a) loan above $350,000 is prime plus three points, which at a 7.00% prime is 10.00%. Our loan analysis sets out what that rate does to a ten-year note.
2.3 Utilities carry a base load even with nobody inside
What it is Commissioning a hall means running the air handling, the humidity control and the lighting before any jumper adds heat and moisture to the room.
What it decides How much of the annual energy bill you pay during a slip. We model half of the operating load, and that assumption is tested in section 7.
What to verify The demand charge on your tariff, which is levied on peak kilowatts and can exceed the energy charge for a park that runs intermittently. The per-square-foot electricity model shows how wide that spread runs between states.
2.4 Payroll starts when you hire, not when you open
What it is Court monitors, front desk and party staff are usually hired and trained two to six weeks before opening, and they are paid for that time.
What it decides The size of the weekly burn during a slip. A six-person commissioning crew costs $4,639 a week at the BLS median wage; a ten-person crew costs $7,732.
What to verify Local wage levels rather than the national median. Our labor cost per square foot piece lists state medians from $12.78 to $17.79 an hour for the same occupation.
2.5 Two lines we deliberately do not compute
Builder’s risk and general liability during a fit-out are priced per project, per location and per loss history. There is no published rate card, and any number we invented would be worse than a blank. The same applies to pre-opening marketing: the sensible formula is target first-month guests multiplied by your cost per acquisition, and both variables are yours.
3. The arithmetic, line by line
Start with rent. Multiply the floor area by the market rent: 31,512 sq ft multiplied by $24.79 gives $781,183 a year. Divide by 52 for the weekly figure, which is $15,023, and divide by 365 then multiply by 7 for the daily figure, which is $2,140.
Interest comes next. A fully drawn $1.2 million balance at 10.00% costs $120,000 a year, or $2,308 a week, or $329 a day. That is the interest-only case, and it is the correct one while a construction facility is still in its interest-only period.
Utilities: 12.1 kWh per sq ft per year multiplied by 31,512 sq ft gives 381,295 kWh at full operation. At half load during commissioning the figure is 190,648 kWh, which at 14.47 cents is $27,588 a year, or $531 a week.
Payroll: the median recreation attendant earned $15.46 an hour in May 2025. Loading benefits at the part-time ratio of 1.25 gives $19.33 a staffed hour, so six people on a 40-hour week cost $4,639. A full-time benefits ratio of 1.43 would raise that to $22.11 an hour and $5,306 a week, so the payroll line in the table is the lower of the two plausible figures.
| Line | Per year | Per week | Per day | Per sq ft per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rent at $24.79 | $781,183 | $15,023 | $2,140 | $24.79 |
| Interest only at 10.00% | $120,000 | $2,308 | $329 | $3.81 |
| Electricity at half load | $27,588 | $531 | $76 | $0.88 |
| Six staff on a 40-hour week | $241,228 | $4,639 | $663 | $7.65 |
| Total carry | $1,170,000 | $22,501 | $3,214 | $37.13 |
Multiply the daily total by 100 and the slip costs $321,443. Divide by the floor area and it is $10.20 per sq ft. Set it against the declared fit-out and it is 26.8%.
The weekly figure is the one to remember, because it is the number every other decision in this article is measured against: $0.71 per sq ft per week, or $22,501 for the whole building.
4. Two ways to count debt service, and why the answer moves by $19,300
Interest-only is one definition of the cost of borrowing during a slip. Fully amortizing is the other, and it is the one that applies if the loan converted to repayment before the doors opened.
On a $1.2 million balance at 10.00% over ten years, the monthly payment is $15,859, which is $190,304 a year and $3,660 a week. The difference between the two treatments is $1,352 a week, and over 100 days it is $19,314.
| Treatment | Monthly | Weekly | 100 days of interest and principal | Total carry over 100 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interest only | $10,000 | $2,308 | $32,900 | $321,443 |
| Fully amortizing over 10 years | $15,859 | $3,660 | $52,100 | $340,757 |
Which one you use changes the answer by 6%, not by 60%, and that is the useful finding. The loan structure is not what makes a delay expensive. Rent is.
Rent alone is $214,600 of the 100-day total, two thirds of it. That is why the lease clause in the next section matters more than the financing.
5. Rent abatement is a calendar, not a discount
A landlord offering three months free sounds like a 25% discount on the first year. It is not. It is 91 days of rent, valued at $195,296 on this building, and it starts on the day the lease says it starts.
Now compare the two clocks. The declared build was 122 days. If the abatement begins at handover, it expires 31 days before the fit-out is even scheduled to finish, and every day after that is paid rent with no revenue against it.
On the Arlington timeline the gap between the declared completion and the opening was 100 days. A three-month abatement covers 91 days of rent. The abatement is shorter than the slip.
This is why the abatement clause should be written against a milestone rather than a calendar date. Two formulations do different things:
- Three months free from commencement. The clock starts whether or not the landlord’s work is finished and whether or not your equipment has shipped.
- Free rent until the earlier of opening day and the date a certificate of occupancy is issued, plus 30 days. The clock starts when you can actually trade, which moves the schedule risk to the party that controls the building.
Landlords resist the second because it hands them an open-ended liability. The counter is a cap: free rent until opening, subject to a maximum of six months. A cap makes the clause negotiable and still covers a normal build.
One more detail that gets missed. If rent runs from handover, the park in this example would have paid roughly $507,000 of rent between 1 March and 23 October before it sold a single admission. That figure assumes commencement at handover on 1 March, which the lease may not do. It illustrates the size of the exposure rather than the terms of this particular lease, which is not public.
6. What the gap costs in tickets
Operating people convert money into admissions faster than they convert it into percentages. At the park’s published walk-in price of $19.99 for 90 minutes, $321,443 is 16,080 admissions.
Put that next to a year of trading. At two visits per sq ft per year, a 31,512 sq ft park sees about 63,024 admissions. The gap consumed 25.5% of a year’s traffic before the first one walked in.
There is a second cost that no table captures, and it runs the other way. The declared date, 15 July, sits inside the US summer school holiday. The actual date, 23 October, moved the opening into the autumn term, which is the weakest part of the calendar for family walk-in traffic in most US markets.
We are not going to put a number on that. No operator publishes a monthly attendance curve, and an invented seasonality factor would contaminate everything above it. What can be said is structural: the first eight trading weeks now run toward the November and December school breaks instead of away from them. Whether that recovers any of the carry depends on the market, and it is a question your own booking data answers after 90 days, not before.
7. What the data does and does not show
The inputs in section 1 are published figures with dates attached. There are four assumptions between them, and each one is worth pricing separately.
What it shows. The filing dates, the floor area, the declared cost, the opening weekend, the market rent, the prime rate, the rate ceiling, the wage and the energy price are all published numbers with dates attached. The arithmetic between them is reproducible by hand.
What it does not show.
- A completion date is not a schedule. That field belongs to an accessibility filing. It records what the project team declared, not what a construction contract requires, and the review status refers to plan review rather than occupancy.
- The cause of the 100 days is unknown. It could be permitting, inspection, equipment delivery, landlord work or a decision by the operator to delay. No party to the project has published a reason, and we are not going to invent one.
- The lease is not public. Rent commencement, abatement and turnover provisions are all unknown. We assumed rent from handover, which produces the largest of the plausible totals.
- The crew size is a choice, not a measurement. Six people is a plausible commissioning crew for a park this size, not a published staffing plan. Four people cuts $1,546 a week from the total; ten adds $3,093.
- Utility load during commissioning is an assumption. We used 50% of the CBECS public assembly intensity. At 80% the electricity line rises to $849 a week, which changes the total by 1.4%.
- Two lines are missing entirely. Insurance and pre-opening marketing are excluded because no public rate exists for either, so the real total is higher than the one computed here.
- One project is not a base rate. A single 100-day slip says nothing about how often slips happen across the industry. Treat this as an example of what a slip costs, not as an average for how long builds run.
- None of this is causal. A park that opened late is not thereby a park that underperforms. The carry cost is arithmetic on committed expenses; what happens after opening is a separate question with different data.
The honest summary: the two largest lines are solid, the two smaller ones rest on assumptions that are stated above, and the schedule itself is the weakest link in the chain because it rests on a filing rather than a contract.
8. Decision rules for the next build
The point of the model is not to predict your slip. It is to price it before you sign, so that schedule risk and cost risk are funded out of the same pot.
| Days of slip | Carry, interest only | Share of a $1.2M fit-out |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | $96,433 | 8.0% |
| 60 | $192,866 | 16.1% |
| 90 | $289,299 | 24.1% |
| 100 | $321,443 | 26.8% |
| 120 | $385,731 | 32.1% |
Rule one: convert the contingency into weeks. A 10% contingency on a $1.2 million fit-out is $120,000, which is 5.3 weeks of carry at $22,501. Most builders treat 10% as prudent. Measured against time rather than cost, it covers a five-week slip and nothing more.
Rule two: buy speed when it is cheaper than the clock. A week saved is worth $22,501 on this building. That is the threshold for every acceleration decision: expedited freight, a second installation crew, a weekend electrical shift, an earlier commissioning slot. If the price sits below the weekly carry multiplied by the weeks it saves, the decision is arithmetic rather than judgment.
Rule three: negotiate the abatement against opening, not a date. Free rent until the certificate of occupancy plus 30 days, capped at six months, moves schedule risk to the party that controls the building shell. The cap is what makes it acceptable to a landlord.
Rule four: put the equipment lead time in writing before the lease. The chain that decides the opening date runs through design, approval, manufacture, shipping, installation and commissioning. A supplier who cannot state a delivery window in the contract is a schedule risk you are carrying for free. Our own process from design to delivery exists because that window is the one item a buyer can actually control.
For a cross-check on the rest of the capital structure, the 22,000 sq ft layout breakdown shows how area converts into equipment count, and the trampoline range sets out what ships in a standard court package.
Send us your floor plan and target opening date, and we will return a zone layout with a delivery window you can put into a lease negotiation.
FAQ
How much does a delayed trampoline park opening cost?
On a 31,512 sq ft park with market rent, a fully drawn loan and a small commissioning crew, about $3,214 a day, or $22,501 a week. Over a 100-day slip that is roughly $321,400, or 27% of a $1.2 million fit-out. The figure scales almost linearly with floor area and rent, so a 20,000 sq ft park at the same rent carries proportionally less.
When does rent usually start on a trampoline park lease?
Rent commencement is a negotiated term, and the three common triggers are handover of possession, a fixed calendar date, and the issue of a certificate of occupancy. Handover is the most common and the least friendly to a tenant, because the landlord’s own work may still be incomplete when the clock starts. Ask for commencement to be tied to occupancy, and cap any abatement period.
How long does a trampoline park fit-out take?
The Arlington filing declared 122 days from start to completion, and the park opened 246 days after registration. That range matches what we see across projects: a fit-out inside an existing shell is usually a build of four to six months, and the approvals on either side stretch the total. Shell work, structural reinforcement and fire strategy are the three items that move the date most.
Should I open softly before the grand opening?
A soft opening trades earlier revenue against unfinished zones and unproven staff. Our rule of thumb is that a soft open makes sense once all the safety-critical items are commissioned and at least nine of every ten attractions are running, because the point of it is to test throughput rather than to sell tickets. Opening with a zone fenced off invites refund requests and reviews you cannot undo.
What contingency should a trampoline park budget carry?
Size it in weeks. Take your weekly carry, decide how many weeks of slip you can absorb, and hold that much cash rather than a flat percentage. On a 31,512 sq ft box, a 10% contingency on a $1.2 million fit-out is 5.3 weeks. If your approval chain routinely takes longer than that, the percentage is the wrong unit.
Sources
- Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Architectural Barriers filing TABS2026013038 for Altitude Trampoline Park at Pioneer Plaza, Arlington, registered 19 February 2026. tdlr.texas.gov
- Altitude Trampoline Park Arlington, location page with published pass prices and opening hours, accessed 27 October 2026. altitudetrampolinepark.com
- Altitude Trampoline Park Arlington, grand opening weekend announcement for 23 to 25 October 2026, event listing via DFW Pulse. dfwpulse.com
- Federal Reserve Board, “H.15 Selected Interest Rates”, release of 26 October 2026, bank prime loan rate 7.00%. federalreserve.gov
- 13 CFR 120.214(d)(4), maximum allowable variable interest rates for 7(a) loans above $350,000. ecfr.gov
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation 39-3091 Amusement and Recreation Attendants. bls.gov
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, released 9 September 2026. bls.gov
- US Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, August 2026 data released 23 October 2026. eia.gov
- US Energy Information Administration, Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey 2018, Table C22, electricity intensity for public assembly. eia.gov
- CBRE Research, “Q2 2026 US Retail Figures”, asking rent of $24.79 per sq ft, published July 2026. cbre.com