Progresh Now Open in Thornton

Tim Wenger | November 1, 2013 | 0 Comments

by Tim Wenger

Progresh, which recently opened at 94.99 N. Washington Street in Thornton, is Denver’s newest action-sports training facility, offereing camps, classes, events, and the opportunity to just drop in and hone your skills before hitting the mountain, skate park, or wherever you go to get your shred on. Colorado Music Buzz caught up with co-founder/co-owner Questor Sapnu and got the inside scoop on how, why, and what the hell is going down in this mega-center of excitement.

CMB: Let’s get the story on how Progresh got started, and what your role in the big picture is.

QS: Progresh was first conceptualized in 2011 after a few trips to Woodward. We love to snowboard and we grew up skateboarding, being able to do it year round was great, except for the drive. We asked ourselves many times how much cooler this would be if it were only closer…and that’s when the wheels started turning. I’m a Co-founder,Co-owner and Operator of Progresh. Me and my other partners, we all share different strengths. I’m in charge of marketing, advertising, event development , event coordination and all media. Those are the main areas of focus for myself. As you could imagine though, being a local startup company we are doing A TON of the work ourselves from sales, coaching and construction to name just a few. We all wear a lot of hats around here haha.

CMB: We know the many-hat wearing feeling all too well here at CMB. How did you secure the location?

QS: We found a great spot in the Pinnacle Playground Complex at 9499 N. Washington St in Thornton. We chose this spot as it’s centrally located in between some other ‘active recreational facilities’. Next door is Mid Air Adventures which is indoor zip lines, Extreme Adventures which is kid/adult american gladiators, Rock N Jammin’ which is an indoor rock climbing gym that’s been there over 16yrs. So as you see, we’re in this fun little play area already. The kid traffic in the summer is insane with buses lined up in the parking lot everyday of the week! It was a no brainer , then the fact that it was easily accessible from Boulder (30min drive), Fort Collins (35mins), Denver (15mins). We’re within an hour from most front range , denver metro and surrounding cities. It all just made sense.

CMB: Any events/opening parties/stuff worth mentioning coming up this summer?

QS: We just finished having our Grand Opening party that went off really really well. We had some wonderful sponsors on board from Never Summer, Icelantic, Vail Resorts, Company Brand, Family Shred, Decks, Public Eye Skateboards, K2 , Lib Tech, Coden, InkMonstr and many others! Last week we did a winter kick off party where we had a ton of great giveaways with the 3 main prizes being 2 EPIC Passes and a Burton Snowboard. Now that that’s over we are developing other events and working with multiple other companies on different things. Let’s just say we have some great events that we are planning for the upcoming season!!

CMB: Talk about how you got into snowboarding/skating/surfing.

QS: Ive always been into sports whether team or individual in school or out of school. I grew up on the south side of Chicago and skating was big then. I’m 39 so when I started skating the kickflip was just being invented. We would build launch ramps, put them on skates and wheel them around different parking lots (because it was only a matter of time before we were kicked out ) and have mini little skate jams. Or we would skate in one of our driveways to the Dead Kennedy’s or the Circle Jerks and have these “skate jams” doing hand plants, ho-ho’s and a bunch of other old school tricks haha Things could’ve been a lot different had times been like they are now with all the amazing free skate parks to go to. But it was fun street skating, sometimes getting chased by cops was fun too. Then snowboarding happened and opened up a whole new world to me. I remember snowboarding in my Sorels. I was hooked from day 1. Surfing later came in my college days. I lived in Arizona but a lot of the weekends we would go out to San Diego and Huntington with our Cali friends. I had a love for board sports already but even when I was in Chicago growing up I’ve always had a passion to surf. So surfing naturally came into the picture. We do yearly surf trips now to Nicaragua. We surf and do things for and within the community each time we go down. We’ve set up sports fields, inter-cambio’s and more with the kids there. The people and the waves are sooo amazing and I swear it’s been my demise because everyday that’s all I jones for when I wake up. Not to sound all cliche but surfing is such a soulful thing to me. Being out in the water, sitting on your boards with your friends at sunset…you can’t beat that. As much as I LOVE Progresh and the kids there and everything about it, when Progresh get’s to a point where everything’s comfortable and running smoothly I think that’s where people will be able to find me from then on….in the water.

Progresh will host music, parties, and other special events from time to time, so be sure to hit up their website and stay up to date on all of the happenings.

Online: progresh.com