At a press conference yesterday held by the River City Co., it was announced that the former Bijou theater downtown, originally slated to become one of the largest American climbing wall complexes, will now be home to the largest crawling ramp complex in the United States.
“It was a tough decision,” said Gretchen Staplemont, the director of River City Co. “We crunched the numbers over and over again and came to the realization that we were kidding ourselves. Chattanooga just doesn’t have enough physically fit people to make a huge climbing wall complex a sustainable venture.”
“Sure, the Ironman Chattanooga triathlon competition sold out in three minutes, but those were all out-of-towners,” said Staplemont. “Remember, Chattanooga is the birthplace of the Moon Pie and the Krystal burger.”
Originally, the facility was to be called “The Block,” but now, the River City Co. is calling the new complex “The Ramp,” which is set to open this Saturday.
“We have all kinds of ramps, for the novice crawler to the most experienced speed-crawler, plus some specialty ramps,” said Staplemont.
“The Slippery Slope” features a lickable surface covered with movie theater-style butter, to motivate crawlers to reach their destination.
“Maybe some day, a giant climbing wall complex can be sustainable in Chattanooga, but we’re taking baby steps,” said Staplemont. “We’ve got to crawl before we can climb.”
