GO Indoor

Facility profile by Sylvie Green e all remember playing outside as kids. We'd kick the can, dodge the ball, or hide and seek until it turned dark and our mothers called us to come in. We know now, however, that those days are over because parents no longer feel safe letting their children run around outside. RexPlex is not your average indoor sports facility. Soccer, basketball, and hockey are just the beginning of the list of activities it offers. RexPlex houses an indoor amusement park, complete with bumper cars, a carousel, and even a roller coaster. Where else do you have a choice between playing softball or Paint Ball? As kids nail kick flips or olley off ledges, rails, and pipes at The Cage, a state-of-the-art Skate Park, parents run on treadmills, ride stationary bikes, and lift weights at the RexPlex Fitness Center. They can even hire a personal trainer. "I started the place because I saw a real need in two particular areas," says facility owner Randy Taylor. "First is the need for a top notch facility as opposed to the mom and pop stuff that is out there right now, which I feel is, frankly, for the most part, of low quality. The other is the need for safety." In the post 9/11 climate, families are not willing to make the complicated plans necessary to visit amusement parks and attend concerts or sporting events that force them to travel far distances. RexPlex offers the community of Elizabeth, New Jersey several choices under one roof. Randy wanted a place each member of the family could enjoy, because it was not oriented toward any one specific area. He also wanted families to feel safe. "Families need a safe place to go and W 24 • Dec.-Jan. 2002 • G O A L they need a top-notch facility that provides something parents and children can use. That's what they have here. I have a policeman on duty most of the time and an EMT on duty all of the time. Everything in here is first class." Rexplex began as four indoor soccer fields, one for each of Randy's children, to which he added two roller hockey rinks, two basketball quarts, rooms for assembling a team. He's always been able to juggle a lot of balls at once, to put each piece of a puzzle in its place. He finds the answers he's looking for by asking the experts in that particular field. Mike Silva, for example, has owned and operated health clubs in the past. Since he has always been a people person and a sports guy, Randy knew Mike was just the person to run RexPlex. Irv Landau children's birthday parties or corporate meetings, a café, arcade games, 18 holes of miniature golf, five batting cages, and a large skate park. This, of course, was only the beginning. When miniature golf proved less popular than originally anticipated, the sand traps and greens were replaced by vertical ramps and banks to expand the skate park. The team at RexPlex found that too many people in New Jersey enjoy skating for them to ignore that segment of the population. They wanted to run an all-purpose facility with all the popular sports. The expanded skate park brought in more revenue its first weekend of business than the miniature golf course did the whole time it was open. "I will admit when I don't know something, and I'll find somebody who does," Randy says. He knows about athletics from playing sports and he knows about business from working on Wall Street, running one of the largest trading floors in the country. Randy's strength, however, is in started Basketball City at Chelsea Piers. He met a lot of people as an associate of the largest, most successful multi-sports complex in Manhattan and was able to maintain these connections at RexPlex as the Director of Sales and Marketing. Rich Bartlett came to the team as an expert in the area of amusement. He began Fun Station USA. The amusement area at RexPlex now includes a rock climbing wall, Laser Tag, and a five-story Mega Maze in addition to the video game arcade. The additional activities available at RexPlex do not affect the caliber of its athletic events. Indoor soccer is the number one sport played at the facility, but each sport, including football and lacrosse, has its own commissioner to maintain expertise and ensure quality. "People don't want junk anymore. They've become more discriminating. There was a time when we were all happy just to take our kids to play soccer in a gym. Then there was a time when we were Ind o o r all happy to take our kids to play soccer in a warehouse with some carpet in it. Now we know that we want what's good, what's really good. That's what I built. I built something with tremendous quality." Last summer, RexPlex opened a full size professional outdoor playing field. When choosing turf, they went with RealGrass, the same brand used by the Dallas Cowboys at Texas Stadium. Special events at RexPlex fill the time other facilities may consider their slow period. The banquet hall serves as the location for corporate team-building events. Because RexPlex is so close to Newark Airport, major companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Continental, IKEA, and FedEx take advantage of its meeting rooms. Members of soccer and hockey teams in the facility-sponsored leagues celebrate their birthdays and Bar Mitzvahs there. Skaters from The Cage attend ska concerts and emo shows. Because RexPlex offers so many choices in activities, summer camps and events like Project Graduation keep it busy year round. Though the facilities at RexPlex and the events that take place there are of the highest quality, everyone can enjoy them. Prices stay low because of the volume of activity. "Our prices are completely affordable," Randy says. "We're offering people the comfort and safety of a Rolls Royce for the price of a Buick." Sylvie Green is a regular columnist of GOAL Indoor. She can be contacted at pr@usindoor.com.

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