Photo by Sarah Cook.
Cory Lehr, owner of the Urban Air Trampoline Park Homewood location, said he expects the park to provide a clean, safe outlet for Homewood families.
Every kid’s dream just opened in Homewood — approximately 30,000 square feet of nothing but foam pits, obstacle courses and wall-to-wall trampolines.
Urban Air Trampoline Park — an indoor amusement center that features all things bouncy — recently opened its doors at 800 Green Springs Highway in Homewood. The opening marks the trampoline park’s first location in Alabama. With more than 30 locations open nationwide, however, the chain is gaining momentum.
Cory Lehr and Tad Duncan, owners of the Homewood Urban Air Trampoline Park said the park, which will employ 40 to 50 locals, houses a long list of amenities meant to entice kids of all ages.
“It’s going to be crazy,” Duncan said of the park’s opening. “They’ve had kids camping out before. It’s kind of like Black Friday.”
Before the park’s official opening, Duncan and Lehr were busy assembling trampolines, filling in foam pits, inflating giant air bags and erecting the park’s warrior course — an impressive obstacle course boasting monkey bars, rope ladders and more.
Duncan guessed that between the pair, they installed more than 4,000 trampoline springs in one day. In all, he approximated there are more than 10,000 springs in the entire park. Almost every piece of equipment, Duncan said, was unloaded and assembled by hand.
“As soon as it hit the dock, we were unloading,” he said.
The trampoline duo are no strangers to one another. Duncan jokes that Lehr is like “the son he never had.”
“He’s my nephew, but sometimes I just call him son,” Duncan said. When Lehr approached Duncan about the business venture, Duncan said they both started crunching the numbers to find out the feasibility of the business. When they saw the results, they sprang into action.
“He started looking into trampolines and next thing you know we’re looking at franchising,” Duncan said. “It just kind of all came together.”
Both hail from Arkansas, but said they’ll stick around to make sure the park establishes a strong start in Alabama.
“As soon as we get done with this one, we want to start one in Memphis,” Duncan said. “And hopefully, we’d like to do something else in the state of Alabama. We like it here.”
The chain opened its first park in Texas not too long ago, Lehr said, and since then, Urban Air has been bouncing into markets nationwide.
The park caters to all ages, but its key demographic, Lehr said, will be toddlers through teenagers. The warrior course and dodgeball arena, he said, will ideally attract older children and teens, while the playground area will be for younger ages.
Along with trampolines, the park will also boast party rooms for birthdays and other events, Lehr said.
“As long as you’re willing to bounce, this is the place for you,” he said.
Duncan said the park will be open seven days a week, and he encouraged people to follow the Homewood location on Facebook for specific times and pricing.
For more information on Urban Air Trampoline Park, visit urbanairtrampolinepark.com.
