A bowling alley in Saint John, N.B., is undergoing major renovations just in time for the start of next season.
Fairview Bowling Lanes first opened its doors in the port city in 1960. For the first time since the first strike was thrown, the original hardwood lanes are being torn out and replaced with synthetic wood lanes at a price tag of $250,000.
“It’s a major investment type of thing,” says Fairview Lanes manager Bob Cormier.
“But saying that, we want to stay open another 25 years or so.”
The renovations began on New Brunswick Day and Cormier is adamant the new lanes will be in place and ready to roll come the start of the bowling season on Sept. 1.
“I’ve watched Facebook in the last few days and there have been some great comments,” Cormier notes.
“Everybody is waiting to see what’s going on and stuff like that.”
Cormier says people can stop by anytime to look at the progress.
“It looks pretty bad now because they are ripping it out, but when they start rebuilding it will be really good,” he said.
The new synthetic lanes require very little maintenance and Cormier says they will guarantee at least 25 years of smooth candlepin bowling for the over 500 league members and public at Fairview.
This is the second major renovation undertaken at the bowling facility since 2006.
“We put all new furniture in,” Cormier says, recalling the changes to the centre in 2006. “We put automatic scoring in. We were the first bowling centre in Atlantic Canada to have fully automatic scoring. That was a major renovation, but this is equal to that.”
At one point in time, Saint John had seven different bowling alleys spread across the city. Now, Fairview and the Saint John Bowlarama Entertainment Centre are the only two still in operation. Cormier says their established clientele have helped them remain open through over six decades of operation.
“We rely on our customers and they rely on us,” says Cormier.
“It’s word of mouth kind of thing. We’re vey friendly, a very friendly staff, and our customers just love to come back to us.”
The games room at Fairview Bowling Lanes remains open during construction.
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