Slick City Action Park recently opened this franchise location in New Jersey. A Fresno facility is under development. Courtesy of Slick City

The Missouri-based franchise joins a wave of trampoline and slide parks filling vacant big-box retail space across the Central Valley

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Fast-growing indoor recreation franchise Slick City Action Park has tapped the former Bed Bath & Beyond location in Fresno for its first Central Valley location.

Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri and Nashville, Tennessee, Slick City Action Park opened its first indoor slide entertainment center in Denver in 2022. It announced the signing of a lease for a corporate-owned location at 7497 N. Blackstone Ave., in the former Bed Bath & Beyond location that closed in 2023.

The 36,725 square-foot space will feature multi-story, dry slides and other attractions geared toward families. The lease announcement from Slick City Action Park was posted on LinkedIn six months ago, but the story was first reported this week by The Fresno Bee, which said the space is currently undergoing indoor demolition work. 

A message to Slick City Action Park representatives was not returned Tuesday.

Slick City revenue projections

While the LinkedIn post states the former Bed Bath & Beyond is a corporate location, Slick City Action Park does offer franchise opportunities, with 131 territories awarded across the U.S., 47 parks under construction and 48 open, according to its website. The next closest open location is in Ontario, which was California’s first center when it opened in March. A location in Oceanside opened in April. 

A franchise has also been awarded in Bakersfield, according to the website.

The average unit volume for a Slick City Action Park location is about $4 million annually in gross revenue, according to its franchise materials, with a median profit margin of 35%. 

Growth of indoor recreation

The area has been a ripe market for such indoor recreation businesses going back to 2011, when Case Lawrence founded a trampoline park called CirusTrix, with its first location opening in Madera. Today, CircusTrix is known as Sky Zone and has more than 300 locations across the globe, including Visalia and Clovis.

Today, there are nearly a dozen trampoline parks in the Central Valley — some part of a national chain, such as Urban Air Adventure Parks, and others locally owned, such as Syctron and No Surrender. 

The indoor amusement center market was valued at about $48.5 billion in 2023, and is expected to grow to $90.8 billion by 2023, according to Strategic Market Research.

“Growth is driven by increasing urbanization, rising disposable incomes & the growing popularity of experiential entertainment activities, especially among younger demographics,” according to the report.

Renewed purpose for retail space

The growth comes as former retail chains such as Rite Aid begin to pare down locations or shut down altogether, leaving vacant space that has been repurposed as health clinics, specialty grocery stores and even trampoline parks. 

A former Longs Drugs location at Herndon and Marks avenues in Fresno was repurposed as Syctron Freeplay Arena, opened by a group of local investors in 2024. 

A former Forever 21 store that closed at the Hanford Mall in 2016 became California’s first Urban Air franchise when it opened in 2018.

And a former CVS location in Visalia became the home to a Quantum Leap trampoline park when it opened in 2017. Today, it is a Sky Zone location.