Balkan Climbing Center is the biggest commercial climbing gym in Bulgaria and the Balkans! Notably, Walltopia was honored to be involved in the entire process of planning, designing, and building the majority of the climbing walls in the gym. In total, over 2500 sqm of climbing surface is distributed between indoor and outdoor rope climbing, bouldering, and training board areas, each on their own floor. In addition, there is a separate kids’ climbing zone for the youngest climbers. A new building was erected from the ground up specifically for the purpose of housing the climbing gym.

Bulgaria is the home to the world leader in climbing wall manufacture. Nevertheless indoor climbing does not boast a ton of popularity in the country compared to the other markets we work for in western Europe or the USA. Until 2013, Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, only had a few small climbing walls in university campuses and buildings. Polished holds, no flooring under the rope walls, rotating t-nuts, no showers and proper changing rooms were the norm.

Then the first Walltopia-built and owned commercial climbing gym in Sofia appeared.

The first Boulderland

Walltopia was recognizing the growing popularity and potential of climbing worldwide and the need to present it to a wider part of the local community in Bulgaria. So in 2013 Walltopia opened a visually intriguing bouldering gym, Boulderland, in a shopping center. Combined with a Funtopia kids zone with Fun Walls, Boulderland was strategically designed to ensure a significant portion of the gym is visible to the average mall passersby. This design effectively fulfilled its purpose of introducing the niche sport to a broader audience.

In 2017 Walltopia finished our new HQ building. We designed it with climbing in mind. Thus the 6-floor office space is integrated with three tall atriums featuring 19-meter rope climbing walls and a substantial bouldering area – a total of 1800 sqm of climbing terrain. We repurposed the climbing gym in the shopping mall to fully serve the young audience.

We replaced the boulders by trampolines, a Cloud Climb and a Ninja Course. In this way we differentiated the active entertainment experience for the youngest visitors of the shopping mall. The climbing gym in the HQ has been serving the local climbing community ever since. Up to now it was the biggest climbing gym in Bulgaria. But it was not enough to satisfy the surge in climbing’s popularity in the city!

It took 11 years after the opening of the first commercial climbing gym by Walltopia for another private investor to set their eyes on climbing and go big. In the meantime a few very small gyms or climbing corners in sports centers popped up here and there but nobody thought of climbing as a profitable business model.

Finally, in 2024, Bulgaria is going to have the first full-scale climbing-only facility built ground-up for the purpose, just like our clients do a few hundred kilometers west of here.

We are honored and proud to be the main supplier for the biggest portion of the climbing walls in the new Balkan Climbing Center! Our sales manager and hardcore climber, Emiliyan Kolevski, was involved in every step of the design process. He worked long days with the client and coordinated the work between our dedicated team of climbing wall designers, engineers, project managers and technicians in order to deliver and exceed the client’s expectations.

“In the course of 10 months we worked on the wall design together with the client and our 3D design mastermind Petar Iliev. We tried many layouts and made a lot of changes and iterations along the way as we wanted to make sure we will create the optimal climbing space that we can possibly fit within the building.”, says Emiliyan Kolevski, sales manager of the project.

Sales manager: Emiliyan Kolevski
Designer: Petar Iliev
Engineer: Lilyana Stoyanchova
Project Manager: Ivaylo Hristov
Lead Technician: Georgi Valchev