Climbing, Legos, Art, and Discount Passes!

Mark your calendars for Saturday, January 8th, from 4-7 pm as we will be hosting an open house event in the Thorp space. A number of local artists will have their work on display for sale at the event. Why the 8th you ask? Well the 8th just so happens to fall within the two weeks we are having our limited time sale for access passes at the $250 mark. That way you'll be able to purchase a pass, hang out with friends, check out the space, see if you can find any art that sparks your interest, and see the enormous lego collection!

What? Lego collection. Why yes! Our neighbors at Brick World happen to have a very large lego collection. Lynn made a video of the enormous collection while viewing our space a while back, and it is entertaining and impressive. The lego collection is open from noon to 4pm, which happens to be right before our open house event, which goes from 4pm to 7pm. So come early, check out the legos, and then head on over to the MN Climbing Coop space!

As there will be art, and climbing passes for sale, don't forget to bring your checkbooks! If you want to send your check with a friend, we'll update the post with all the information you'll need to send along.

A note regarding the purchase of access passes: All money from the sale of access passes will go into a escrow account and will only be spent on running costs once the gym officially opens it's doors. This means that if the Gym does not open by July 1st, 2011, all of your money you spent on your 1 year access pass will be returned to you by August 1st. Once the gym does open it's doors, your pass will be good for one year from the date the doors open.

If you are interested in contributing money to help us get our doors open, as this is not part of the 1 year pass sale, please use the "Donate" button on our blog, or on our website. If you have questions about contributing to the MN Climbing Co-op, please contact one of the board members, or send an email to info at mnclimbingcoop dot com and we can help you out.

250 Bucks for a Whole Year?!

That's right folks. We've re-ran our numbers and boy-o-boy do we have a deal for you!

We will be able to offer one year passes for $250 for a limited time. If you miss the first deal, you'll be able to get a pass for $270 for a limited time after that. If you miss both of those, then you'll be able to get a pass at the standard rate of $350 per year, or $60 per month.

Just to make sure this is absolutely clear:

• $250, 1 Year Access Pass on sale January 1st - January 16th 2011
• $270, 1 Year Access Pass on sale January 17th - January 31st 2011
• $350, 1 Year Access Pass anytime after that
• $60, 1 Month Access Pass anytime after that

If you did not purchase a one-time membership for $20 (probably at the comp) you'll need to purchase one at the time you get your access pass. It's just like the one-time membership fee to REI. Buy it once, and you're good for as long as you frequent the Gym.

Because the access passes will go on sale before our build out is complete, we will hold all of the money in escrow and we will not spend it until the we pass inspection and the doors are officially opened. If anything should possibly happen where we are unable to open the gym, 100% of your money you spent on that access pass will be refunded to you. We certainly thought of everything, didn't we?

Where can you purchase your pass (and membership if you need one)? We'll have a few options for you. We are planning to have a showing at the new space during the first two week of the sale and you'll be able to purchase one in person then. We'll also be able to buy one from at least one of the board members in person, we'll figure out the details on that soon. We also will have an online PayPal purchasing option for those who would rather buy their membership in front of the warm glow of the computer screen. Now because PayPal charges us 3%, we'll be passing that fee on to you if you so choose to purchase your pass that way. If you don't want to pay the extra 3%, you can contact us and we'll figure out how you can get a check to us.

More details to come...

What We Learned About Zoning

Ah, this has been an long process of learning many new things. One thing we learned as of late is that of city zoning regulations. After talking with the city and our architect, we discovered that the space at Como and 280 could not pass the barrage of city regulations. It seemed we were more excited about the structure of the space than little things like sprinkler systems, bathrooms, and exit doors. We looked into renovating the space, but the costs quickly added up and we deemed it to be too expensive.

From this we realized that we needed to find a new location, and that we did!

The new location is actually in the same building that we looked at in the very beginning. This space is in the Thorp BOHM building at 1620 Central Ave and it is ready to go! Some of you may have seen pictures of similar spaces in this building previously on this blog. This particular space is not shown on that blog post, but is now being considered the primary choice for us to build in. At 2,660 square feet, we can operate out gym under much more lenient restrictions from the city. This means that all of our money can go into the gym itself, and not into infrastructure. This space also offers the best steel structure to build off of. It is very similar in construction to the 2554 Como Ave space, minus the first lower wing at the entrance, but adds huge bridge crane rails that can support any structure that we could imagine.

We are working with an architect, who is also a climber, to help us through the compliance process with the city. We may not open in January, but we are working hard to be waist deep in building materials by then! For those of you who are interested in helping during the build out, the time is coming, and we will let you know as soon as we are ready!