Land Values Rise and Bowling Alleys Fall : Many Lanes Topple Under Relentless Push for More Profitable Land Use
Ten years ago, bowling alley operator Robert Feuchter celebrated the grand opening of his Northridge Bowl. Featuring the latest automatic scoring equipment and operating under a 20-year lease, the center did “good, profitable business,” he said.
In 1983, however, Feuchter relinquished his lease--for a price--and Northridge Bowl closed.
“The owner of the property made us an offer we couldn’t refuse,” Feuchter said. “He found he had a better use for the land.”
4 Closings in 2 Years
The incident was not isolated. Northridge Bowl is one of four San Fernando Valley bowling establishments to call it quits in the last two years. And proprietors say more may soon follow.
The cause: escalating real estate values, which make the land too valuable to bowl on.
“It’s one of the big problems in the business today,” Nat Rosenfeld, one of the owners of Canoga Park Bowl, said. “Land values have gone up so high that, at lease renewal time, landlords want to get a lot more rent or turn it into another business.”
Little wonder. Like drive-in movie theaters and drive-through car washes, bowling alleys are large users of space, sprawling over 150,000 square feet in some cases, according to proprietors. As real estate values increase, the owners of these facilities tend to get bought out, or booted out.
Some of the Valley area’s 19 bowling centers are vulnerable to being booted out because their leases are entering their final years. Most were built between 1957 and 1962, during what their operators remember with nostalgia as the Golden Age of bowling. During this boom, they say, some entrepreneurs bought the land on which they built their centers, but many signed 20- or 30-year land leases instead.
Since then, real estate development has changed the Valley’s landscape. It also has left the proprietors who bought their land or signed long-term leases--some up to 99 years--sitting on highly desirable parcels.
But bowling-alley operators with short-term leases are sitting on needles and, well, pins.
Real estate brokers such as Seth Dudley, vice president at Julien J. Studley Inc. of Encino, are well aware of the development potential of bowling properties. “A bowling alley is just not the highest or best use of the land,” he said.
“There’s a couple on Ventura Boulevard that I’d like to get my hands on,” Dudley said, citing Woodlake Bowl in Woodland Hills and Sports Center Bowl in Encino as prime retail and office-building land. His favorite, however, is Encino Bowl, also on Ventura Boulevard.
In fact, Encino Bowl has been for sale on and off for several years, Dudley said, and only zoning laws restricting building heights have kept the property from being sold. The bowling alley’s lease expires in three years.
Many Valley operators of bowling alleys said they have received offers from brokers and developers who want to raze their businesses and build condominiums or offices.
In the tone of soldiers reeling off the names of fallen comrades, proprietors list the Valley bowling alleys that have closed in the last two years. They are, besides Northridge Bowl, where a shopping center now stands: Valley Center Lanes in Canoga Park, which was sold to the U.S. Postal Service; Marlindo Lanes in Burbank, a 24-lane alley, which sold for $1 million to make way for condominiums; and Starlite Bowl in Van Nuys, which enjoyed a brief time as a roller rink before it closed and the building was boarded up.
Simi Valley Center
New alleys are hardly appearing in similar numbers.
Many local owners predict that firms such as Brunswick, the 165-center bowling giant that also manufactures equipment and machines, will soon be the only bowling enterprise able to build in expensive areas such as the Valley. But even Brunswick, which operates three alleys in the Valley, has chosen to build in developing, less expensive areas.
On July 19, the company opened a 40-lane center in Simi Valley. It was the first new bowling alley in the Valley area since the early 1960s, according to Allen Shaw, president of the Bowling Proprietors Assn. of Southern California.
Some proprietors are in a position to profit from the real estate market because they own their land or have long-term leases.
Sports Center, a Studio City establishment with a 99-year lease on its property, is looking into building a high-rise office complex with an underground bowling center, General Manager Tom Cristi said.
Mark and David Spiegel said they have received offers for Woodlake, the Woodland Hills alley, and might sell if the price is right. They said they would use the proceeds to build a bowling alley, but say they must look outside the Los Angeles area to find land they can afford.
The land for a 40-lane bowling alley in Los Angeles could cost $3.6 million, and construction costs could amount to another $3.6 million, David Spiegel said. In less-developed areas such as the eastern San Gabriel Valley, land for an alley that size runs under $1 million, he said.
Only 34 Remain in Area
According to industry groups, in 1962 the sound of tumbling pins resounded in 105 establishments in the Los Angeles basin and Valley areas. Today, only 34 remain, according to Web Sheridan, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles Bowling Assn.
Mark Spiegel said the 77 centers still standing countywide are closing at a rate of four or five a year.
“From 1963 to 1968, centers were closing because they were overbuilt,” he said. “But, from 1973-83, the majority of centers closed because they had lost their leases or converted the land to other uses.”
Industry watchers agree that the surviving alleys are doing well in the Valley, where many residents match profiles showing the average bowler to be a homeowner making $35,000 annually, and with two years of college education.
More than 75,000 Valley residents bowl weekly and they spend an estimated $31.5 million a year on everything from balls to league fees and beer, according to the Bowling Proprietors Assn. of Southern California.
Some Have Remodeled
The surviving bowling proprietors market their product in different ways. Some have remodeled, use the automatic scoring machines and even have video cameras that can play back bowling performances. Others prefer an old-fashioned atmosphere and swear by hand scoring, which they say is more accurate. Some offer live entertainment in their lounges, including “rock-and-bowl” promotions to draw teen-agers late at night.
For the moment, the trend in the industry may be symbolized by the Valley Center Lanes in Canoga Park. The Postal Service hasn’t yet moved in, so the alley--its Pop Art signs still urging passers-by to come in and bowl--stands boarded up and deserted in an empty parking lot overgrown with weeds, an island of forgotten Americana.
