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ECONOMICS & enterprise<br />
Urban Air Is Back Aloft!<br />
BY PAUL NATINSKY<br />
The COVID-19 pandemic has<br />
been difficult for businesses in<br />
general, but especially hard<br />
for some. Urban Air Trampoline &<br />
Adventure Park in Sterling Heights<br />
finds itself in the latter category.<br />
Owner Wes Ayar said his entertainment<br />
venue was finally able to open<br />
its doors on October 10, after 209<br />
days closed.<br />
Through the entertainment venue’s<br />
hiatus, Ayar has relied on the<br />
Paycheck Protection Program, other<br />
loans, leniency from his landlord and<br />
from the 130-location Urban Air<br />
franchise company.<br />
Ayar has owned Urban Air since<br />
March 2019. The Chaldean News<br />
covered the Grand Opening in the<br />
2019 October issue, when Ayar had<br />
high hopes for a booming business.<br />
The indoor adventure park offered a<br />
fun (and at the time, safe) environment<br />
for keeping kids occupied.<br />
About 30 percent of Urban Air’s<br />
footprint is trampoline attractions.<br />
The park also features a rock-climbing<br />
wall, bumper cars, ropes course,<br />
virtual reality experience, zip line<br />
and other activities.<br />
Urban Air provides year-round<br />
indoor amusements. On its website,<br />
the company describes itself as “the<br />
ultimate indoor playground” for<br />
families. It hosts children’s birthday<br />
parties and touts a more varied and<br />
expansive presentation than typical<br />
indoor trampoline parks.<br />
The company has been on an upward<br />
trajectory, voted Best Gym In<br />
America for Kids by Shape Magazine,<br />
Best Place To Take Energetic<br />
Kids and Best Trampoline Parks.<br />
While now open, Ayar says the<br />
450-capacity park is now limited to<br />
120. Open day passes that allowed<br />
patrons to come and go have given<br />
way to scheduled time blocks. Mask<br />
wearing and social distancing are in<br />
full effect, as is enhanced sanitation,<br />
which required hiring an additional<br />
employee.<br />
Urban Air faces a stiff challenge<br />
to profitability under current COV-<br />
ID protocols. Ayar says almost all of<br />
the 130 franchises across the country<br />
re-opened ahead of those in Michigan,<br />
and began recovering profits<br />
as pandemic protocols loosened in<br />
other states.<br />
“Our hope is to ramp up, little<br />
by little,” Ayar said. He, too, hopes<br />
slowly to return to profitability, but<br />
says he would need to operate at 50<br />
percent capacity, at least, and sell out<br />
all of the time slots available.<br />
“With the general public there<br />
are two things right now. A) Most<br />
people still don’t know we’re open<br />
and B) The people who know we<br />
are open are still not coming because<br />
they are not yet comfortable, and we<br />
completely understand that.”<br />
Ayar is working hard to get the<br />
word out that Urban Air is open,<br />
clean and safe. Urban Air is working<br />
with a company on “hyper-local”<br />
marketing and hitting social media<br />
hard, while the franchise puts out<br />
national ads.<br />
In addition to attracting customers,<br />
Urban Air’s future depends to a<br />
significant extent on the rules it must<br />
follow going forward, particularly regarding<br />
capacity.<br />
“Twenty-five percent just doesn’t<br />
get us anywhere because of what our<br />
rent is and what our expenses are.<br />
Twenty-five percent capacity just<br />
wouldn’t allow us to make any money<br />
or break even,” says Ayar. He says<br />
the business can only sustain itself<br />
under the current rules for a month<br />
or two, without a substantial influx<br />
of new money.<br />
If there is no change in state rules<br />
governing capacity, will the business<br />
be able to continue?<br />
“That’s a really open-ended question.<br />
If my partner and I are willing<br />
to refinance our homes and take that<br />
money and put it into the business,<br />
we can make the business float. But<br />
as far as the business itself, a month,<br />
two months might be all the business<br />
could withstand with the current level<br />
of capacity and the (the other added<br />
costs and restrictions),” says Ayar.<br />
Changes at least in process are<br />
taking place at the state level. A recent<br />
court ruling has shifted decision<br />
making on Michigan’s COVID precautions<br />
from exclusively under the<br />
Wes Ayar<br />
of Urban Air<br />
control of the governor to a status<br />
more inclusive of the state’s legislature.<br />
It remains to be seen what effect<br />
the move will have on businesses<br />
limited by current rules.<br />
“At the capacity that we’re at, we<br />
would have to run our business close<br />
to perfect to just get to a break-even<br />
point every month with rent, with<br />
our loans and our payroll and our insurance,”<br />
says Ayar.<br />
When we talked, Ayar said Urban<br />
Air had been open three days. “The<br />
experience for the guests seemed<br />
to be positive. We didn’t have any<br />
guests who had anything negative to<br />
say, so that was a big plus for us.”<br />
For now, trampoline and adventure<br />
parks join the ranks of re-opened<br />
restaurants, hair salons and recently<br />
re-opened movie theaters trying to<br />
figure out how to serve their customers,<br />
pay their employees and earn a<br />
living as they wait for rules changes<br />
that allow them to increase their<br />
bottom lines.<br />
<strong>NOVEMBER</strong> <strong>2020</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 35