What can you do with a 300 sqm unit?

The short answer

300 sqm is the first size at which a leisure centre becomes possible, on one condition: that functions overlap. Otherwise the same area comfortably holds a single activity, done better.

Two delivered projects, two opposite models

Mythologique, Montpellier: 250 sqm, one escape game. The whole area works for a single activity. Reception, waiting and briefing serve one flow, and the sets receive the budget that would otherwise have been spread thin.

Otopia, Angoulême: 300 sqm, five activities. Escape game, karaoke, quiz, bar and food coexist. Fifty square metres more, four activities more. Floor area is not what made that possible, the layout is: the bar is simultaneously the reception, the waiting area, the place people spend money and the supervision point.

An identical unit would have produced a mediocre result with a reception, a corridor and five separate rooms. The number of activities that fits into 300 sqm is a consequence of the layout, not a property of the unit.

How to choose between them

The question is not how many activities you can fit. It is:

• Do you want to run a bar? A bar changes the trade, the opening hours, the licence, the staffing and how long customers stay. Without a bar, functions cannot overlap and the five-activity model collapses.
• Will your catchment area come back? A single activity lives on a renewed audience. A multi-activity venue lives on the same customers returning for something else.
• How many people on the floor? Five activities in 300 sqm need a team able to run the bar and launch games, not one person at a desk.

What to check at this size

• The shape of the unit before its area. 300 sqm in a long, narrow shape with a single entrance rules out overlap: everything becomes corridor.
• The number of fire exits as soon as the permitted occupancy rises.
• Toilets, in number and accessibility, which change with occupancy and with the presence of food service.
• Extraction, if a kitchen, even a small one, enters the project.

Next step

This size band is decided on the layout, not on the unit. That is exactly what 2D drawings and positioning settle.