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Ethos Climbing will officially open its doors at 128 Queens Quay East on May 26, with a grand opening celebration scheduled for June 8. The facility brings a new bouldering concept to Toronto’s eastern waterfront district, joining the growing roster of innovative businesses at the Daniels Waterfront – City of the Arts development.
Business Model Targets Urban Professionals
The adult-oriented climbing facility offers what owner Alejandro Aquino describes as “social fitness” — a model built around combining physical activity with community interaction.
“Bouldering is like track and field sports, where you give an extreme effort in a short amount of time—and then you sit and you talk and you sip your coffee,” Aquino told 6ixRetail in an exclusive on-site interview. “You’ll be in the gym for four hours and maybe you’ll climb for about 40 minutes.”
Ethos will feature a coffee bar, fitness area, showers, and changing rooms. Operating hours are strategically extended, with early morning access beginning at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday through Friday and weekend hours stretching to 10 p.m., designed to capture both the pre-work and after-office crowds.
Sunlight-Driven Design
Unlike most climbing facilities that occupy windowless industrial spaces, Ethos features wraparound glass windows that flood the interior with natural light, a deliberate point of differentiation in the market.
“I knew that if we were going to do a climbing gym, it had to be a little bit different than what the other people were providing,” said Aquino. “One of the big things that was super easy to get us separated from the other companies was just to have natural light coming into the facility.”
The gym offers distinct climbing zones with varying difficulty levels throughout the space, highlighted by a 16×12-foot Kilter Board featuring LED lights that illuminate 20,000 different possible routes.
Pricing Structure and Membership Options
Ethos will enter the market with a tiered pricing model. Day passes are priced at $35 including rental shoes, with a two-week trial membership available at $49. The company offers both casual and committed membership options, with four-month packages at $400 and annual memberships at $950.
For occasional users, a 10-punch pass is available at $230, which can be shared among multiple climbers.
Market Positioning in Evolving Waterfront District
The Daniels Waterfront complex where Ethos is located has attracted prestigious tenants including OCAD University and Daniels Artscape Launchpad. The broader eastern waterfront area has seen significant investment in recent years, with theScore establishing headquarters at 125 Queens Quay East and both LCBO and Canada Goose occupying 100 Queens Quay East.
“The nice thing with Daniels and with this area is that they understand what it is to be a destination. It’s an ecosystem,” noted Aquino. “I can’t be more excited about the businesses that are around us and how we’re going to contribute to that space.”
Eight-Year Journey
For Aquino, the opening represents the culmination of a long entrepreneurial journey that required significant personal sacrifice, including living in his van to channel resources into the business.
“I am still living in the van,” Aquino revealed. “Opening a gym is expensive, and I’m always just trying to shovel as much as we can into the project.”
Aquino’s path to opening Ethos included working with climbing facilities in British Columbia and Ontario, including Steel Peak Climbing in Vaughan and Basecamp Climbing in Toronto, experiences that convinced him of the market opportunity.
“Through these experiences it became obvious that Toronto was the place to do it,” he said. “So here we are.”
The opening of Ethos adds another dimension to Toronto’s evolving fitness market, which has seen recent expansion from major brands including Sweat and Tonic, Equinox, and GoodLife.
“I think there’s still plenty of room to grow. I think there’s tons of markets to share,” said Aquino. “We’re currently sitting in the most dense population centre in the entire country. And if you look at the total square footage of climbing gym accessible to these people, it could be a little bit more going on.”
Dustin Fuhs is the Editor-in-Chief of 6ix Retail. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of Retail Insider, Canada’s most-read retail trade publication. He has over 20 years of experience in the retail, marketing, entertainment and hospitality industries, including with The Walt Disney Company, The Hockey Hall of Fame, Starbucks and Blockbuster.
Dustin was named as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024 and 2025.