BOWLED OVER WITH EXCITEMENT
Membertou officials getting calls, emails on the start date for new bowling alley
Membertou getting calls, emails on start date for new bowling alley.
Bowling aficionados will have extra time to perfect their delivery with a delay in the opening of the Lanes at Membertou this fall.
The original plan was to officially open the bowling centre this month. The cost of the project is slightly more than $5 million, according to project manager Gerald Lalonde.
However, Lalonde, who is also an architect with Membertou’s corporate division, said poor weather over the winter forced delays in construction. The building is now expected to be completed by the end of October with a grand opening planned for some time in November.
The 22,000-square-foot concrete, fully accessible structure is being built by Brilun Construction Ltd., with F.C. O’Neill, Scriven, and Associates Ltd. working on the mechanical and electrical. It was designed by Stantec Architecture.
The bowling lanes themselves — made of synthetic material, not wood — will be installed by Brunswick Bowling Products, based in Muskegon, Mich., the week of Oct. 1, Lalonde said.
“It’s a synthetic floor material that looks like wood,” he said, adding the lanes will have a high-gloss finish to them.
“It’s solid phenolic core. … It’s dimensionally stable. Traditionally, a wood floor will move with temperature and moisture changes, (but) this floor stays flat and straight. And wood floors need to be refinished, this doesn’t. It’s virtually indestructible.”
There will be 16 lanes installed at the bowling alley, the first in the Sydney area since the Heather Lanes closed in 2010 due to the extensive renovations at a reconfigured Sydney Shopping Centre.
The return of bowling to the Sydney area, brings the number of active alleys in Cape Breton to three, including Glace Bay’s Town Centre Lanes and the Strand Bowling Alley in Sydney Mines.
The advances in technology will mean no more using a pencil to scratch in your strikes and spares on a piece of paper in Membertou.
Lalonde said a fully automated touch scoring screen will record your progress, with the ability to save it for future reference.
“If they register with the system they can track their statistics (and) scores over long periods of time.”
There will also be three sports simulators made by Swing Track next to the lanes, allowing people to try out any one of 13 sports such as golf, hockey, lacrosse, rugby, soccer and baseball, among others.
In the open concept design, there will be a restaurant and bar called The Eleventh Frame. Patrons will have the option of sitting in the dining area or bringing a meal to their lane while they wait their turn to bowl.
A couple of years ago Membertou commissioned a feasibility study to take a look at what recreational opportunities were missing in the local area.
“People were looking for a social, multi-use space to come with family or friends,” said Kelsea MacNeil, Membertou’s director of communications and stakeholder relations.
“The idea of the Lanes (at Membertou) plus the sports simulators, the restaurant and bar, the private party space, all of that was kind of born out of the shaping of the feedback we had gotten through our research study.”
The Lanes at Membertou is expected to hire 40 people for various full- and part-time employment.
MacNeil said a general manager, and two support managers, along with full-time lane attendants, have already been hired. However, it’s expected as many as 25 to 30 people still need to be hired for part-time jobs in the kitchen as well as service and cleaning staff positions.
All available jobs will be posted on www.membertou.ca and on Membertou’s social media platforms.
Based on the inquiries Membertou has been receiving, there are anxious bowlers looking to use the yet-to-be-completed facility.
An email address has been set up for people seeking information on establishing a bowling league or to put their name on a list — lanesinfo@membertou.ca.
“People show up in the building, ‘Where can I book?’ ‘I want to bowl.’ This is at the construction site. It’s happened often — I meet them on site,” Lalonde said, smiling.
The facility is the latest development in the Indigenous community and follows the opening of the Membertou Sport and Wellness Centre in September 2016.