Yuma Sun

The business of bounce

Company announces plans for trampoline park in Yuma

- BY MARA KNAUB @YSMARAKNAU­B

Have some energy to burn off? Are your kids bouncing off the walls? An attraction coming to Yuma might help. But you’ll have to wait until next year, when a new indoor trampoline park opens its doors.

Ultimate Air, with headquarte­rs in Jonesboro, Ark., has announced plans to open a location here in the first quarter of 2018. The park is expected to hire three full-time staff members as well as 65-70 parttime employees.

“We are thrilled to be joining the Yuma community and excited to offer a fun, family-friendly entertainm­ent venue that encourages physical activity and quality time for groups and jumpers of all ages,” Buddy Caubble, president of Ultimate Air, said.

“We have chosen Yuma because we feel that it has an unmet need for additional indoor, activity-based family entertainm­ent. After studying the demographi­cs and researchin­g the area, we determined Yuma was a good fit for us,” he added.

The company isn’t ready to disclose the specific location yet as the real estate deal is still being worked out.

“As soon as we are comfortabl­e we will announce the location on our social media sites, hopefully within the next 60 days,” he noted.

This location is not fran-

chised. “We do not have a local owner, but our ownership group will be very involved in the community and in the management and operation of the park,” Caubble explained.

“The owners are all from a part of Arkansas that is similar to Yuma in a lot of ways. We are from an area that was underserve­d in regard to activity based family entertainm­ent, which led to our first park opening,” he added.

Ultimate Air was founded in 2014 and currently has existing parks in Jonesboro, Ark., Cape Girardeau, Mo., Maui, Hawaii, and Stillwater, Okla. Each park has between 10,000 to 12,000 square feet of jumping surfaces equipped with wall-towall trampoline arenas, kiddie court, basketball dunk lanes, dodgeball, slack line, laser maze and foams pits that include battle beams.

The parks also offer birthday party packages, group packages for schools and churches and reserve-ahead individual jump passes that can be booked in advance online.

The company plans to open more locations. “We are continuall­y studying various markets and cities to determine the viability of a park,” Caubble said.

The company will open at least 13 new parks in 2018, including Flagstaff and Yuma.

“We are very grateful for the overwhelmi­ngly positive response that we’ve had in person and on social media,” he added.

According to the company’s website (www.goultimate­air.com), the parks welcome people of all ages, sizes and physical abilities as jumpers are separated in zones by age and size.

However, all jumpers must wear specially designed Ultimate Air Socks that are available for $2.

“The socks are specially designed with rubber ‘grippers’ on the bottom and must be worn on the trampoline­s for safety. The socks are a high quality sock that can be reused on return visits to the park,” Caubble said.

Special discount nights are available for individual­s with special needs, children and toddlers and homeschool and college students. Some sites even offer yoga classes, boot camps and fitness classes with workouts on the trampoline­s.

The parks also offer summer day camps and family night specials. Food and drinks are available at snack bars.

 ?? PHOTO COURTESY OF ULTIMATE AIR ?? ULTIMATE AIR, AN INDOOR trampoline park, has announced plans to open a location in Yuma in the first quarter of 2018. The company is expected to hire three full-time staff members as well as 65-70 part-time employees.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ULTIMATE AIR ULTIMATE AIR, AN INDOOR trampoline park, has announced plans to open a location in Yuma in the first quarter of 2018. The company is expected to hire three full-time staff members as well as 65-70 part-time employees.

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