Wood Floor of the Week: 50-Foot Yeti Found in Memphis

When it comes to sightings of mythical creatures in Memphis, Tenn., you’d probably expect to see Elvis more than you would a giant yeti. But Bigfoot’s frosty cousin is hard to miss in the new gymnasium at the city’s Crosstown High School.

“It’s probably the largest logo we’ve ever done, and I’ve been doing this for over 25 years,” says Bruce Gleneck, president and owner of Memphis-based Sports Floors Inc., which installed the fearsome 50-foot yeti in the gym known as “The Icebox.”

The project was a near and dear one for the sports flooring company, as the building that houses the school is a point of pride in the local community. A former Sears processing and distribution center, the 1.5 million-square-foot facility sat vacant and deteriorating for roughly 20 years until the city took it on as a renovation project in 2014, according to the Memphis Business Journal. Since then, the Crosstown Concourse has developed into a vibrant city hub that houses the high school, restaurants, apartments and more. The school’s gymnasium is one of the newest additions to the site.

After winning the bid for the contract, Gleneck and his team worked with a local marketing company to design the dynamic logo based on the school’s yeti mascot. Sports Floors then set about installing approximately 10,500 square feet of hard maple flooring, which they then sanded with 40-, 60- and 100-grit.

Painting the central logo required “multiple, multiple” stencils, Gleneck notes, as the largest stencils were about 60 inches and the yeti was, well, big. “It’s a very tedious project,” Gleneck says of painting the humongous design. They mixed custom colors to capture the chilly white of the yeti and the icy-blue of the borders.

RELATED: Wood Floor of the Week: Court at Storied University of Minnesota Venue Gets 'Rustic' Refinish

In a way, finding a client willing to allow the design to expand outside the confines of the court’s playing area was almost as rare as finding a yeti itself, and considerably more welcome.

“As a company, we want people to think of the court as a canvas and go beyond the scope of just the lines,” Gleneck says. “And it’s hard to get people to do that. But when it does happen like this and they’re not afraid to come outside the boundaries … then it makes the whole court stand out bigger and better.”

When the boundary-busting yeti was completed in a week, Sports Floors’ finishing crew wrapped up the two-month-long project by applying two coats of waterbased sealer and two coats of waterbased finish.

“The school loves it, the city loves it,” Gleneck says of the completed gym floor. “I think it has really highlighted our city.”

The once abandoned building continues to thrive in the community, says Gleneck. And that’s an outcome that could warm even a yeti’s heart.

Suppliers:

Flooring: Connor Sports | Abrasives: Norton | Sanders: American Sanders | Paint, Finish, Sealer: PoloPlaz