WICHITA — Another company is going to be taking part of the former Big Dog Motorcycles space downtown, and this one is an especially fun one.
Get Air Wichita is a giant indoor trampoline park and is part of a growing chain of eight Get Air parks nationally.
“It’s been an incredible opportunity both for me and kids,” says Nancy Deville, who has teamed with other investors to open the business.
“Basically, what really drew me to it is the trampoline because kids love to jump,” she says.
Except she’s hoping adults use the park, too.
“You can burn 1,000 calories an hour jumping on the trampoline,” Deville says. “It’s so much fun.”
Deville is a California-based health book writer, and she says two of the most important things for maintaining health are getting exercise and clearing your mind.
“There’s not enough of that for kids today,” she says of physical activity and time “where you’re just not thinking about anything.”
Get Air will open in 22,000 square feet on New York Street between Douglas and First Street.
The wall-to-wall trampoline will have a number of different areas for various activities, including dodge ball, a basketball dunk and foam pits. There’s also a bungee jump that helps users who can’t do flips on their own.
There will be a toddler area as well.
“That’s really important because then they won’t be intimidated by the older kids,” Deville says.
“Birthday parties are going to be a big part of what we do,” she says. Deville says it makes sense to have something active to do after serving birthday cake.
“What do you do when you’ve got 15 kids with a sugar high?”
There will be teen nights, parities and corporate events “so we can get people out of their office and do team building and confidence building and clearing out mental cobwebs,” Deville says.
There’s also going to be something called GETAIR-obics for exercise.
“I want to see more adults coming out,” Deville says. “How many hours can one person stand on a treadmill staring at CNN?”
One of Deville’s partners is Utah-based Trampoline Parks owner Val Iverson, who Deville says is known as “the king of trampolines.”
She says Iverson has designed technology that makes the parks safer for children.
“He’s all about safety.”
Deville says she and her partners had looked at other parks to invest in.
“We didn’t like the way they were operating.”
Deville says Get Air Wichita should open by the end of the year or mid January at the latest.
Last year, McGinty Machine signed a deal for 20,000 square feet at the former Big Dog campus near Douglas and Hydraulic. In 2012, RSA Marketing Services also purchased the 3,000 square feet it had been leasing at 145 N. Hydraulic.
With the Get Air lease, that leaves 60,000 square feet at the campus in the original Big Dog office, showroom and warehouse. Jeff Walenta and Scott Salome of NAI Martens are handling leasing and sales at the campus.
They represented the building owner in the Get Air deal, and Troy Farha, also of NAI Martens, represented Get Air.
Deville also is investing in a Get Air in Lexington, Ky.
“Get Air is growing really rapidly.”
She says there’s a reason for that.
“It’s really cool.”