Climb time: Vertical Ventures reaches a milestone

The EDGE District’s climbing gym and community hub, Vertical Ventures, commemorates 30 years of business in June.

Vertical Ventures (116 18th Street S.) will host a day-long community event (“Verty Thirty”) to celebrate the anniversary Sunday, June 8. All ages welcome, no experience needed.

The gym opened in Tampa in 1996, and established its St. Pete location 10 years ago. As the first climbing center in the Tampa Bay region and only one of a handful across the state, the people behind Vertical Ventures were pioneers in bringing climbing to Florida. The sport has grown significantly since the early days of its founding and continues to evolve.

Managing partner Kelly KJ Jackson reflected on the growth of the sport and the concurrent development of St. Pete:  “Just in the way that St. Pete has grown and changed, we have too.  We [Vertical Ventures] were in a warehouse and there weren’t many people around. People would ask, ‘Is it safe to go to your location?’”

Jackson laughed and continued: “And now, we’re surrounded by condos and businesses and families walking on the Pinellas Trail and in the street. There’s definitely more people climbing, which means a more diverse group of people climbing.”

Vertical Ventures is a community hub as much as it is a climbing center, and the staff members pride themselves on making the sport more inclusive and accessible. The space hosts monthly adaptive climbing groups for individuals with disabilities, provide meetup spaces for various affinity and interest groups, and offers discounted rates for people who are financially constrained.

“Our coaching and our whole ethos in the gym really is not to build amazing rock climbers,” Jackson said. “It is to make them honest, humble, have integrity, and be mentors themselves. You get to see them grow and change through that, and they become these really good humans.”

The staff believe that the gym is important for the development of community, especially in a time when third spaces, or areas outside the home and work where people foster connection, seem to be disappearing. “A lot of people will try rock climbing when they’re in a kind of downtime in their life. Maybe they’ve just moved here, maybe they’ve gone through a divorce or something, maybe they don’t have a friendship group or a sense of community. They’ll try it out, and they will make lifelong friends, ” Jackson explained.

“For a lot of people, Vertical Ventures is their third space, and it feels really good to be that for people. Our staff is just really intentional about trying to facilitate that kind of energy in the space. It takes a lot of work and effort, but I personally think it’s really important.”

For more information, visit www.verticalventures.com.