Trampoline Park Consolidation: Four Chains, One Lease Test

Slick City opened its 50th park on 15 October 2026, in Milford, Massachusetts. By its own count the brand has opened 25 locations this year, half of its entire open estate in ten months.

One day later, House of Air in San Francisco announced a closing date. The park has run for 16 years inside a 1921 hangar at Crissy Field, on an 8,000 sq ft (743 m²) floor with 42 conjoined trampolines at its centre. Its general manager told the San Francisco Chronicle that a new long-term lease would cost “well above what a trampoline park in this space can support.”

In Oregon, two of those chains sit in one building. Sky Zone is fitting out the lower level of the former Nordstrom at Clackamas Town Center, a box of roughly 54,000 sq ft (5,017 m²). Kids Empire is taking an upper floor. A bouldering gym takes the ground floor.

Read one at a time, these are local property stories. Read together, they describe a change in what a viable trampoline park is made of. The line that now separates the parks that open from the parks that close is drawn by lease term and floor area, not by the name above the door.

This article sets out the 2026 record as it stands, then tests that reading against the cases that do not fit it.

---

1. The 2026 opening record, in date order

Six openings or expansion announcements from four brands make up most of the public record for the year. Three of the six reuse retail space that closed for reasons unrelated to family entertainment.

Two more figures set the scale. Urban Air describes a national network of more than 350 open parks as of September 2026. Sky Zone reports roughly 300 locations worldwide and a stated plan to reach 500 by 2027.

Slick City’s numbers are the most detailed, because the company published them alongside the milestone. As of September 2026 it had 173 locations signed, under construction or open, with 50 of those trading. That leaves 123 sites in the pipeline against an open estate of 50. The company also said it had recorded more than 6 million guest visits since its 2022 debut, and that more than 45% of those visits fell in the preceding 12 months.

Its European expansion is a licensing structure rather than a single-site roll-out. Activeon, an indoor leisure group, committed to at least 26 Slick City locations across the European Union, and the two companies identified more than 135 potential markets. The Nottingham debut is being followed by Gothenburg and Vienna.

---

2. The 2026 closure record, in date order

The closures form a different list, and the reasons attached to them are narrower than the reasons usually quoted for a park failing.

Four of the five involve the building rather than the business: a lease expiry at House of Air, a landlord reclaim at Plymouth, rent arrears at Mega Air, and a unit back on the letting market at Pittston. The fifth, MoveX, was liquidated over tax. None of the reporting describes a collapse in attendance. The Plymouth operator offered up to 30 staff roles at two other sites and said he would move the springs and pads to a venue elsewhere in the city that he described as two or three times larger. Mega Air’s owners blamed conditions outside their control, not a shortage of customers, and the events venue next door closed at the same time.

That is the part most summaries miss. A trampoline park that closes is usually not a park that ran out of children. It is a park whose lease stopped working.

---

3. The two lists differ by floor area, not by brand

The largest opening in the record is 54,000 sq ft. The House of Air building is 8,000 sq ft. That is a ratio of 6.75 to 1. Against the Slick City unit in Vancouver, the ratio is 4.4 to 1. Against the Sky Zone under construction in Cedar Park, Texas, it is 3.75 to 1.

Floor area alone decides nothing. What it changes is the number of ways a park can pay for itself. An 8,000 sq ft floor supports one jump area, a cluster of party rooms and a small cafe, which means one revenue line with a low ceiling. A 54,000 sq ft floor can carry a jump court, a ninja course, a climbing element, a toddler zone, a cafe and a party wing, each with its own price.

The Clackamas building shows what the larger format now looks like in practice. One 120,000 sq ft department store has been divided among three tenants on three levels: climbing on the ground floor, trampolines below, soft play above. The landlord, Rhino Investments Group, chose a stack of specialist operators over a single replacement anchor. For each tenant, the shared building lowers the cost of parking, frontage and core services. For the landlord, three leases replace one, and no single tenant carries the whole box.

What the record does not show: none of these operators publishes unit-level revenue, attendance or rent. The comparison here is floor area and lease structure, both of which sit in the public record. It is not a profit comparison, and it should not be read as one.

There is also a selection effect worth naming. The 2026 openings are the ones that reached a press release. Parks that opened quietly, in secondary retail units of 15,000 to 25,000 sq ft, do not generate coverage, so the opening list is biased toward the large and the well funded. The closure list carries the opposite bias: a closure is a public event, and a small closure can attract as much local coverage as a large opening.

---

4. Why a 54,000 sq ft box needs a tenant with credit

Fit-out cost is the reason. It is also the figure that first-time developers most often underestimate, because it is quoted per square foot and the square footage is large.

Fit-out per sq ft = total buildout cost ÷ floor area
Annual amortization = fit-out per sq ft ÷ lease term in years
Rent headroom = revenue per sq ft − operating cost per sq ft − amortization

One published figure makes the arithmetic concrete. The Sky Zone under construction in Cedar Park carries an estimated renovation cost of US$2 million on 30,000 sq ft. That works out to about US$66.67 per sq ft, or roughly US$718 per m², before equipment, stock or pre-opening payroll.

The spread between a five-year term and a fifteen-year term is US$8.89 per sq ft a year, or about US$266,700 a year on 30,000 sq ft. That is not a rounding difference in a business where rent is usually the largest fixed cost after payroll. It is the difference between a site that can be financed and one that cannot.

This is why lease term, not brand, sorts the two lists. A tenant that can sign 15 or 20 years at a fixed base rent can spread a heavy fit-out into a manageable annual number. A tenant on a five-year term, or on a renewal the landlord can reprice, has to recover the same spend in a third of the time. House of Air is the clearest case: 16 years of trading, a lease expiring, and a new market rent that the operator judged above what the use could carry. Nothing about the park’s attractions changed. The term did.

Large chains carry an advantage here that has little to do with brand affection. They can sign longer terms, they can offer a parent guarantee across several sites, and they can absorb a year of pre-opening costs. A landlord comparing a single-site operator against a 173-site pipeline is not really comparing two trampoline parks. It is comparing two credit profiles.

For the arithmetic underneath this, including the rent line as a share of revenue and five filed cost breakdowns, see what a rent per square foot actually costs a park and the five-filing comparison of cost per square foot.

---

5. The closure that breaks the simple brand story

Sky Zone Pittston Township closed in September 2026 after more than 12 years. It was a franchise, one of more than 300 worldwide, and it shut with no announcement beyond a line on its own website. The signage came down, and the building was advertised for lease within days.

If brand alone carried a park, that closure would not have happened. It did, which narrows the claim. A franchise gives an operator a playbook, a procurement channel and a recognised name. It does not renegotiate the rent, and it does not extend a lease the landlord wants back.

New Zealand adds a second correction. Two Christchurch parks failed within a week of each other in March 2026. Mega Air had opened in 2016 in a converted transport depot, built largely by its owners using their construction experience, and it went into liquidation in October 2026 with about NZ$152,000 in rent and outgoings outstanding. MoveX, which closed a week earlier, was liquidated owing roughly NZ$300,000 in tax. Neither case involves a competing chain entering the catchment. Both involve fixed costs that outran the cash the site produced.

Plymouth is the third variant, and the cleanest. Super Tramp had traded for a decade when the landlord decided to take the building back. The operator had a month to strip the site and moved the equipment to a venue elsewhere in Plymouth that he described as two or three times larger. The park did not fail. The lease ended, and the operator’s response was to consolidate into a bigger box.

Three failure modes, one common factor: the site’s fixed obligations, not its attractions. That matters for anyone reading consolidation as a brand contest. The relevant question is not whether a chain is coming to your market. It is whether your lease would survive a rent reset, and whether your box is the one a landlord would rather re-let.

The landlord side of that equation is not new. It has already ended parks in this record: see what happens when a landlord ends a trampoline park.

---

6. What a chain pipeline does to an equipment order

Consolidation reaches the supply side faster than it reaches the customer. A brand opening 25 parks in a year is not placing 25 separate orders. It is placing a program, with a standard kit, a standard drawing set and a scheduled delivery sequence.

Slick City shows the structure plainly. Its affiliate, Slick Slide, is described as the manufacturing and research arm behind the brand, with 21 slide designs in the portfolio and modular construction that lets new designs be introduced into parks that are already trading. Slick City also holds 63 patents and patent applications on the slide technology.

Two consequences follow for an independent buyer. The first is capacity. When a factory holds a program for a chain, the open production slots between program phases are what remains for single-site orders, and those slots move. The second is the retrofit market. If a brand can upgrade an existing park by swapping a module rather than rebuilding a structure, the chain’s own estate becomes a recurring buyer of parts rather than frames.

Neither consequence is a reason to avoid a manufacturer that also serves chains. It is a reason to ask a different set of questions before a deposit:

• Which chain programs are already in this factory’s schedule, and where does my order sit relative to them?
• Is the production slot date written into the contract, or only the delivery window?
• If a chain program slips, does my order move with it, and what is the remedy?
• Are the components in my drawing set standard to the factory, or specific to my project?

The last question is the one that costs money three years later. Standard components are cheaper and faster to replace. Project-specific components look better in a rendering and become a single-source part with a lead time measured in months. A park built to trade for 15 years should know which of the two it is buying, and in what proportion.

Attraction count per unit of floor area is the other half of this. A 54,000 sq ft box is not a 22,000 sq ft box with more of everything: the ratio of attractions to area changes, and the layout has to be drawn for the larger footprint from the start. The comparison across five 2026 parks is in attraction density by floor area, and the equipment layout for a mid-size floor is in the 22,000 sq ft layout breakdown.

---

7. The costs a bigger box adds

Scale is not free, and the 2026 record holds enough operating detail to show where the cost lands. Cedar Park is expected to employ five full-time staff and about 70 part-time staff. That ratio, one full-time role to 14 part-time roles, is a scheduling model rather than a management model: it puts most of the labour into the hours when the floor is busy, and it puts the training burden on the part-time group.

Three costs scale faster than floor area in a large box:

Supervision coverage A larger floor needs more sightlines watched at once. The number of staff on the floor is set by the number of zones that must be observed, not by the number of guests, and a zone that cannot be seen from a single position needs its own pair of eyes.

Fit-out duration A 30,000 sq ft build-out takes longer than a 15,000 sq ft one on almost every trade, and the rent clock usually starts before the doors open. Carrying cost during a delayed opening is covered in the cost of opening 100 days late.

Revenue ramp A new park does not open at its mature attendance. The gap between year one and later years is wide enough that first-year debt service is the binding constraint on most builds; the published spread is in the revenue ramp after year one.

The counter-argument deserves a hearing. A small box is cheaper to fill and cheaper to staff, and House of Air traded for 16 years in 8,000 sq ft with 42 trampolines, which is an efficient use of a historic structure that could not have been expanded. The problem was never the size of the floor. It was that the floor could not generate enough margin to cover a market rent on the building it sat in.

---

8. What would prove this wrong

The reading above is that lease term and floor area, not brand, now decide which parks open and which close. Four observations would overturn it, and each is testable within twelve months.

One: a run of small independent openings. If the next year produces five or more independent parks opening in units under 25,000 sq ft (2,323 m²), in secondary retail or light industrial space, then the large-box pattern is a phase in the retail cycle rather than a change in the minimum viable size. Two or three such openings would not be enough. Five would.

Two: chain closures at scale. Pittston is one franchise unit. If a single market loses three or more chain units in a year, brand membership stops working as a proxy for credit, and the lease explanation loses most of its force.

Three: rent comps falling for independents. The argument depends on landlords preferring longer terms and stronger covenants. If independent operators start signing 15-year terms at rents flat to 2024 levels, the gate has opened and the constraint was demand, not credit.

Four: the stacked anchor fails operationally. The Clackamas building puts climbing, trampolines and soft play in one structure with shared parking and shared egress. If one of those three tenants exits within 24 months over access, noise or parking conflicts, then three leases in one box is a worse structure than one, and the model behind the largest opening in this record is the wrong one to copy.

One more piece of evidence would not change the reading but would change its weight. If a chain publishes unit-level revenue for parks of different sizes, the argument moves from lease structure to unit economics, and the numbers could point either way. No chain in this record publishes that data. Until one does, the comparison stays at the level of floor area and lease terms, which is where it can be checked.

---

9. Three decisions this changes this quarter

1. Price the fit-out per square foot before you price the attractions. Take the buildout estimate, divide by floor area, then divide again by the lease term in years. If the result is more than about a third of expected revenue per square foot, the site does not work at that term, whatever the attraction list says.

2. Treat the lease term as part of the design brief. A five-year term and a fifteen-year term produce different buildings. The shorter one cannot carry a heavy theming package, a mezzanine or a bespoke structural element, because none of it amortizes. Ask for the term first, then design to it.

3. Find out who else is bidding for the box. If the shortlist includes a chain with 100 or more sites, your offer will be judged on covenant as well as rent. That is the moment to offer a longer term, a personal guarantee or a larger deposit, rather than a lower rent that the landlord will read as a weaker tenant.

The equipment side of this is a design question, not a brand question. If you are weighing a 30,000 sq ft box against a 20,000 sq ft one, the layout, the zone count and the staff coverage change with it. A layout drawn for your actual floor area and lease term is the cheapest way to find out whether a site works before you sign.

Get a free design and quote →

Our team sends a 3D layout and a costed equipment list within 48 hours of receiving your floor plan, and we will say so when a floor area is too small for the attraction mix you have in mind. See how a project runs from drawing to opening, or read why operators work with us.

---

FAQ

Are trampoline park chains taking over the industry?

No published figure supports a market-share claim, and the chains in this record do not release unit-level sales. What the 2026 record does show is that chains are winning the large boxes: 54,000 sq ft in Oregon, 35,500 sq ft in Washington, and a 173-site pipeline at Slick City. Whether that converts into share of revenue is a different question, and it cannot be answered from opening announcements.

What size building does a trampoline park need in 2026?

There is no single minimum. The 2026 openings in this record run from 30,000 to 54,000 sq ft (2,787 to 5,017 m²), while a park that traded for 16 years in San Francisco occupied 8,000 sq ft (743 m²). The variable that binds is not size but the ratio of fit-out cost to lease term. A small box with a long term can work; a large box with a short one usually cannot.

Why did House of Air close if trampoline parks are expanding?

Its lease was expiring after 17 years, and the operator judged the replacement rent to be above what a trampoline park could support in that building. The park was not reported as loss-making or short of visitors. The Presidio Trust, which owns the building, is required to charge market rates, and the gap between the old rent and the new one was the deciding factor.

Does a franchise brand protect a park from closing?

Not on its own. Sky Zone Pittston Township closed in September 2026 after more than 12 years, as one of more than 300 franchise locations worldwide, and the building was advertised for lease within days. A franchise supplies a playbook, procurement and a name. It does not change the rent or extend the lease.

What should an independent operator ask a landlord for?

Term first, then rent. A 15-year term with a fixed base and defined renewal options lets a heavy fit-out amortize; a five-year term with a market reset at renewal does not. Ask also for a defined contribution to the fit-out, a rent-free period that covers the build, and a clear position on what happens if the centre’s other tenants change use.

---

Sources

1. Franchising.com, “Slick City Action Park Opens 50th Park as Expansion Accelerates Across the U.S. and Europe”, 15 October 2026. franchising.com
2. What Now Portland, “Sky Zone Trampoline Park Coming to Former Nordstrom Space in Clackamas”, 13 August 2026. whatnow.com
3. What Now Portland, “Kids Empire Bringing Indoor Playground to Upper Level of Former Nordstrom”, August 2026. whatnow.com
4. What Now Portland, “Slick City New Vancouver Location Will Be The First In The Pacific Northwest”, 22 September 2026. whatnow.com
5. The State, “A new adventure park is opening in a busy Columbia area”, 2 September 2026. thestate.com
6. The MoCo Show, “Trampoline Park to Open in Frederick”, 22 September 2026. mocoshow.com
7. WilCo Guide, “Cedar Park to get first Austin-area Sky Zone trampoline park”, updated 23 August 2026. wilcoguide.com
8. SFist, “House of Air Trampoline Park to Close After 16 Years at Crissy Field”, 16 October 2026. sfist.com
9. SFGATE, “House of Air, San Francisco’s only trampoline park, to close for good”, October 2026. sfgate.com
10. Plymouth Live, “Popular Plymouth attraction to close with ‘one last bounce'”, September 2026. plymouthherald.co.uk
11. The Citizens’ Voice, “Sky Zone Trampoline Park in Pittston Twp. shuts down”, 3 September 2026. citizensvoice.com
12. The Press, “Trampoline park ordered into liquidation over $150,000 in unpaid rent”, 8 October 2026. thepress.co.nz