Wisconsin weather is no match for Let’s Run Around

Rich Palzewic

Staff

May 5, 2025

ASHWAUBENON – After realizing how few indoor options there were for their two young boys to burn energy – especially on cold, winter days, rainy afternoons or extreme heat – Beth and Mark Kinnunen said they came up with a logical solution: open their own indoor playground.

The co-owners said Let’s Run Around is set to welcome customers at 2606 S. Oneida St. in Ashwaubenon (next to David’s Bridal) sometime this fall.

“The building is nearly 20,000 square feet, making us the largest, family owned indoor playground in Wisconsin,” Beth said. “As a young family who loves Green Bay, we’re passionate about creating something truly special for families like ours.”

Beth said Let’s Run Around will be a self-serve indoor playground, open 12 hours a day, 363 days a year, with minimal staff on-site.

“Families will be able to let themselves in and out using a unique code at the front doors,” she said. “We’ll offer daily admission, as well as monthly and yearly memberships. It will also be a fun and easy place to host birthday parties and private events. There’s nothing like this in the area, and we’re excited to provide a flexible, modern option for families with all kinds of schedules.”

Beth said she and Mark are partnering with Little Tikes Commercial and Northland Recreation to build the one-of-a-kind indoor playground.

“They’ve created popular outdoor play areas like Voyageur Park in De Pere and Memorial Park in Appleton, so we’re thrilled to have them involved,” she said. “Our goal is to bring the look and feel of an outdoor playground inside – bright, open and full of energy, no matter the weather.”

Beth said the space will include:

• A custom playground
• A turf area for open play
• Swings
• Giant building blocks
• A dedicated two-to-five-year-old play zone
• A track that goes around the play area
• A seating area where families can eat and relax

“We’re also hoping to partner with a local coffee shop to open a café inside the space,” she said.

So far, Beth said the community response has been “overwhelming.”

“We’ve already heard from thousands of families and local businesses who are excited about what we’re building, and we can’t wait to share our final designs with everyone soon,” she said.

Eighteen months in the making

Mark said when they tried finding spaces for their two young boys to burn off energy during inclement weather – which, let’s face it, Wisconsin has a lot of – they often found themselves at the mall.

“We thought, ‘This is kind of crazy (how) we have to go to the mall and walk them (around) so they get the energy out,’” he said. “So we started thinking about what we could do – we were obviously missing something in Green Bay. That’s when we initially thought of the idea of an indoor playground. That was November/December 2023.”

From there, Mark said he and Beth realized there were similar facilities to what they envisioned throughout the country, but nothing in this area.

“We visited a few other locations that do something similar and fine-tuned our process throughout the last year and a half,” he said.

Mark said the closest/most similar location in the state to what Let’s Run Around Green Bay plans to offer is in La Crosse.

“That location just opened late last year,” he said. “Otherwise, the closest other ones would be in the Minneapolis area. I think there is also one in Fargo, North Dakota. More of these indoor playgrounds are starting to pop up now, so we’re getting in, I believe, at the beginning of this new idea.”

Mark said they also put out a survey about a year ago to get feedback on what the public wanted and if there was a need for something like this.

“Beth shared the survey on Facebook with other moms she knew, and it got shared all over the place,” he said. “We had more than 1,000 responses within 24 hours from people who were interested in having something like this in the area. It was just from a simple share on Facebook – we didn’t advertise it. From there, we knew it was something we could do and was needed in the community.”

Though most people might think of Let’s Run Around as an extreme-weather destination, Mark said he thinks a lot of people will use the facility year-round.

“Beth’s background is working in the schools, so she has made a lot of contacts that way,” he said. “We’ve kept in contact with those vendors and other companies throughout the years, and they’re interested in collaborating with us to create some events and get some additional traffic during the (indoor playground) off-season.”

With an opening set for the fall, Mark said they are still working on staffing.

“We have an idea of how many we’re going to need – probably about six staff members total,” he said. “Once we get closer to opening, we’ll have a better idea of staffing.”

Beth said the building that will house Let’s Run Around was on the couple’s radar for more than a year.

“It’s pretty much the only area building available that makes sense,” she said. “It has to be a certain height because we have to get these playgrounds in there – and we wanted it to be big.”

Beth said she and Mark looked at a couple of other possible spaces but ultimately decided on the Oneida Street location.

“This is the only building we really, truly thought would work,” she said. “The location is also really good on Oneida Street, so we didn’t want it way on one side of town or way out in Hobart. There was a big warehouse we thought about, but it was in New Franken.”

Folks can follow Let’s Run Around’s progress on its Facebook and Instagram pages.