Here Come the Trampoline Parks: JLL Report at ICSC
The sharp growth of the retail niche, which includes kid zones full of foam pits and skee-ball, is a sign of the economic times, analysts say
The surprise retail category bouncing hardest into American hearts is the trampoline park.
At least that was one of the primary takeaways from a new entertainment report that JLL unveiled at ICSC in Las Vegas Tuesday morning.
The key data point was that there are more than 350 trampoline parks and kid zones planned in the U.S. and Canada, accounting for a whopping 59 percent of all entertainment concepts on the horizon.
“We have 16.5 million square feet [of entertainment retail] planning to open in the U.S. and Canada,” said JLL’s James Cook, North American director of retail research, who prepared the report, “which I have to say is staggering — we did not expect to find so much.”
Part of the reason for this expansion has to do with the prohibitive costs of a visit to Disney World, or some of the other pricey theme parks that families are not willing to spend money on. A local kid zone in a suburban mall, however, is significantly cheaper and attracts repeatable business.
“Thematically it fits right in with the idea of barbell economy,” said Cook. “The idea is high net worth individuals are doing very well — and a lot of folks are on a budget looking for a value. In 1973, a one-day ticket to Disney was $27 in today’s dollars. Today, they charge a family of four millions.” (Cook was joking. The real cost for a family of four to spend three days at Disney runs $2,783, per the report.)
In addition to trampoline parks and kid zones, the report saw an increase in family entertainment centers like Dave & Busters, escape rooms, arcade bars, art installations and selfie museums, virtual reality concepts, and the “competitive socializing” category — in which customers interact in a fabricated game show environment (and in which there are an impressive 1.8 million square feet of planned concepts rolling out, as per JLL).
Because of the need for high ceilings, a number of trampoline parks have backfilled big-box retailers and department stores. But one shouldn’t be tempted to think that those are the only types of entertainment retail taking the space. There have been a number of transformations into higher-end concepts like Netflix House and Meow Wolf.
Some of these entertainment concepts have even eaten into the stalwarts of the business. “Traditional retail is going back to the market not finding traditional retail because there’s an entertainment or healthcare [in the space they want],” said Naveen Jaggi, JLL’s president of retail advisory services.
Max Gross can be reached at mgross@commercialobserver.com.
