(Video rendering courtesy of Uptown Climbing.)
Baton Rouge’s first commercial climbing gym, Uptown Climbing, is going up on Coursey Boulevard and is set to open in late July, featuring four distinct rock climbing areas, yoga and aerial silks.
The 10,000-square-foot gym is currently under construction at 10505 Coursey Blvd., across the street from Investar Bank. It will feature a main rope climbing wall with 60 stations; a speed-climbing area, where two people can race up identical walls or practice climbing up a crack; a 90-foot bouldering section; and a “conceptual oak tree” tower, co-founder Robb Antrobus says.
The bouldering section will be on a second-floor mezzanine, and the first floor will have space for yoga and aerial silks, which are long pieces of fabric hanging from the ceiling that are used for aerial acrobatics.
Climbers will pay a $16 day rate or buy a $75 monthly membership. Recurring monthly memberships will be $65 per month with a $50 startup fee, and Antrobus’ partner, Lee Guilbeau, says there will likely be perks to signing up early. Guilbeau will also teach acroyoga, a two-person form of yoga that incorporates acrobatics.
“I’ve been sort of dreaming about this for the last seven years or so,” says Guilbeau, who been climbing since discovering it at LSU in the early 2000s. “The Baton Rouge market is a little bit bigger than the surrounding areas and has a lot of potential, mostly because of the young demographic, the schools around the area, and the growing public awareness of climbing.”
Like other climbers in the area, Guilbeau has over the years traveled to Lafayette’s climbing gym to practice. With Uptown opening, he now envisions a place where students from local schools can compete against each other and even a potential site for competitions.
LSU recently opened portions of its new UREC facility, including a climbing area with a 35-foot rock wall and bouldering section, and BREC operates an outdoor rock wall. Other than that, the closest commercial climbing gyms are in Lafayette, Slidell and New Orleans.
“I do think the (UREC) is a good introduction,” Guilbeau says. “(Uptown) is also something that high school students will respond really well to … I’m hoping to bring a lot of potential school athletes together in one place.”
Antrobus hatched the idea several years ago while he was living in Los Angeles. After his partner dropped out, he met Guilbeau at a climbing association meeting in Boulder, Colorado, and the two began crafting the idea for a Baton Rouge gym.
“It took two people with the same dream finding each other in Boulder, Colorado to make this happen,” Antrobus says.
—Sam Karlin
