Now Open for Parties -- A Holiday Miracle

It's true. We are pleased to be accepting reservations for parties at PUMP'd. Just click here and you'll be on your way. It's that easy!

Our system will guide you through every step of the process: Choose your date. Pick a time that works best for you. Choose from one of our many party options to customize your event.

The last several weeks have been hectic for us, as we're sure they have been for all of you. As most of you may know, the city of Watsonville had a mandatory closure and had to lay off most of their staff. After a handful of inspections (on their last day of work), the city issued us a temporary occupancy permit which allows us to be open for private parties ONLY. We hope to be open for normal operation (including general admission/Open Jump use) sometime in mid to late January.

Please stay tuned for our Grand Opening announcement in the coming weeks.

We hope each of you had a Merry Christmas & have a happy and safe New Year!!

Happy Thanksgiving

The Pump'd staff is fast at work to ensure we open our doors in December.
We're nearing the finish line and hope you will enjoy all the hard work that has gone into making this a place that is safe and fun for kids of all ages!

Assuming the next 2 city inspections go well, we should be open before the Christmas holiday break for everyone to come and enjoy PUMP'd!

We will be going 'LIVE' in the next few weeks for you to book your parties-- stay tuned!

Toddler Playground pix are here!!

We're proud to announce that as of Saturday (11/08/08) the area we're devoting to the younger/toddler crowd is 100% complete! Please check out photos taken today by clicking HERE.

We spent the last few days building the climbing structure, laying out some fun elements, and installing play panels. We have no doubt that this room will delight our guests & see plenty of action.

I See a Sign

If there's a sign, it must be official, right??

Our temporary "Coming Soon" sign went up today. We shot some video of Lori and I unveiling it. I just need to figure out how to upload video onto the blog.

So, let's catch up on where we are since the last time we posted to the blog:

• We are working with a designer to help us come up with a cool facade treatment for the Main Street side of the building. The city is offering a grant program for local businesses, so they'll help contribute toward the cost of beautifying the building.
• We met with our muralist (Arturo Thomae) today to go over concepts for the mural that will adorn our main entrance
  
• We have our first official sponsor/advertiser!! We will have space set aside for businesses to market themselves.
• We are working with a deli to provide part of our overall catering menu. We think this partnership will make many of our customers very happy. We don't want to only offer food for kids. Mom's, Dad's and Grandparents have to eat too.
  

There's a lot of construction still going on. Everything from wall framing, electrical, heating/air, security/surveillance and plumbing.

By the end of next week our Toddler's room (a working title) will be completed. We'll have photos of the room go up on our website gallery page.

Total Chaos

Don't let the title of this entry strike fear into your hearts. "Chaos" is the name of an inflatable obstacle course we purchased & inflated for the first time yesterday. Actually, we inflated two-thirds of it.

It is much larger than either of us expected, but we think we can make it work. It's roughly 31 feet long by 25 feet across and roughly 18 feet tall. It's a monster. Our girls loved it though.

Lori snapped a cameraphone picture of it. I'll update the post with the image once she sends it to me.

We had to deflate it in order to let our electricians install lights on our ceiling (which they're doing today). Things should start happening quickly here-on-out.

I'm heading to the building right now and will snap a few pictures and share the progress with you.

PLANS ARE APPROVED

This just in: Our plans have been approved by the city. Trish is putting the packet together and should be calling shortly to pick up the permits. I'll update this post with a photo of the actual permit.

So, when is PUMP'd going to open? Pt II

I wanted to send a quick update today saying that we had another round of "Comments" against our site plans.

The good news this time is that it was a single comment.

Our architect was lightning quick to revise and print off a new set of plans. Lori and I then dropped them off to the Planning Desk (Hello Sofia and Trish...again).

As luck would have it, Dale (Building Inspector) was there and made it sound like we "Could" have our permits on Thursday.

FINGERS and TOES CROSSED

The Toddler Room

We designed the Toddler Room specifically for our younger guests -- who might not be ready to tackle the giant inflatables with their older brothers, sisters or friends.

The Toddler Room will be filled with soft play toys such as over sized building blocks, teeter-totters and a foam house that can be built, knocked down and rebuilt. We also have a 9 foot tall playground climbing structure and slide. At the very heart of the room is the whimsical mural pictured above.

We contracted Arturo Thomae to create a mural that captures the essence of living on the central coast from a child's perspective.

Arturo has created many of the public murals we see in Santa Cruz County, including: The Beach Street Revival mural at the Boardwalk, the Exquisite Design's showroom building in Watsonville and a project at the La Selva Beach Firehouse.

He knew exactly the look and feel we were going for and captured it perfectly!!

We can't wait for our guests to experience this area of PUMP'd for themselves.

So, when will PUMP'd be open?

Alot of people have been asking us when we plan on being open. Unfortunately, we don't really have an answer for them/you.

At this very moment our architect and electrical engineer are updating our floor and electrical/lighting plans for submittal to the city. This will be our 3rd attempt at submitting plans for the ever elusive BUILDING PERMIT. This reminds me, I need to call our architect to find out if the plans are ready to be delivered to the city planning desk. The folks at the desk know me by name now (Hi Sofia and Trish) and are as eager for us to open our doors as we are.

Without the permit, our general contractor (Rod) and the sub-contractors are limited in what they can do for us. The good news is that alot of work has already started. The bad news is that we'll be losing momentum unless we get the permit(s) to complete the job(s).

Each time we have to re-submit our plans, the checkers have 5 business days to review and accept or issue "Comments". We have received 2 sets of comments so far. We hope these will be the last.

Rod assures us that once we have the permits that it'll take roughly 3 to 4 weeks to complete the job. Which puts us around Halloween, assuming there are no more comments after this round.

We'll include some pictures with upcoming posts so that you can see how the transformation is coming along.

Update: The new plans have been submitted. Fingers crossed

It's Takes a Village

While most people think that Lori and I are the one's bringing PUMP'd to life, we wanted to take a quick second to give a shout out to the people who are at our building, transforming what used to be a funiture store into something much much more special. Literally, without these people we would be nowhere:

Elaine Kiernan @ Financial Resource Associates (Santa Cruz)

Kristen Macken @ M Commercial (Santa Cruz)

William Ow @ Ow Properties (Capitola)

Bob Corbett @ Robert Corbett Architecture (Watsonville)

Rod Markell @ REM Builders (Santa Cruz)

Michael Serafin @ Serasoft, Inc (our website guru)

Arturo Thomae, Muralist (Aptos)

Marty Ackerman, Bradley Olin & everyone at the Redevelopment & Planning Dept with the city of Watsonville

These good folks are the one's that are truly bringing PUMP'd to life. If any of our readers find themselves wanting to start their own business, we suggest you "Google" anyone on this list.

The History of PUMP'd -- Condensed Version

The evolution of PUMP'd can be traced back to 2004. Lori and I have always wanted to start our own business that was centered around family entertainment.

At first we considered getting into the bouncer rental business (which we actually did for a short while). After some deep soul-searching and a meeting with our financial planner, the idea for PUMP'd was born.

We were referred to a commercial realtor and the hunt for properties began. We searched up and down Santa Cruz County (at roughly 7 buildings) Our requirements were pretty unique -- We needed a combination of space and ceiling height. Very few buildings had both.

Flash forward to April '08, we signed a lease for 555 Main Street in Watsonville. This used to be the home for Chavez Furniture, Heilig Meyer's and other furniture retailers.

Our section of the building is roughly 9,300 square feet. The majority of the space has a great barrelled roof architecture from the '30s. At center, it's 22 feet high. This is a PERFECT height to accomodate giant slides and obstacle courses!!

At this very moment there is a talented crew of electricians, plumbers and contractors working to make our space perfect for when we open our doors.

Welcome to our Blog

The management team at Pump'd is starting this blog in an effort to keep our future customers up-to-date on all things Pump'd.

The blog will be updated regularly, so please check back often. There's alot of great stuff going on & we want all of you to be included.