After decades of offering 24 lanes of bowling fun, Southland Lanes has announced it will likely close down at the end of June.
It already emptied its coveted pinball room, which held more than 30 machines for local players.
The family-run operation is closing due to renovations to the Southland Shopping Center, says business co-owner Holly Weber, who runs the alleys with her husband, Mike Weber. (Their son Chris Weber ran the pinball room.)
“What's prompting the closing basically is that the building was built in 1950 and the upstairs retail space no longer meets the code, so no engineer will sign off on it,” Holly says, “so the landlords cannot leave the retail space without reinforcing floors, and that would require them tearing out most of our ceilings in order to reinforce the floors upstairs for them to rent the place out upstairs, and they are not willing to reinvest in putting money back into this place to reopen.”
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Though Holly says she and Mike are open to exploring options to maintain a few bowling alleys and the pinball room, a compromise like that doesn’t look likely, Holly says. The family plans to host its last day on June 2 and vacate the space by the end of June.
Southland Lanes first opened in 1950, Holly says, and Mike worked in the space as a mechanic in the ‘70s and ‘80s along with his brothers. After a dispute between the landlord and the previous owners led to a three-year vacancy, the Webers took over Southland Lanes in 2011 and ran the business for more than a decade.
In that time, Chris developed the pinball room, which hosted pinball leagues and tournaments with the area’s avid pinball community.
“He was always a pinball nut,” Holly says. “He started bringing in one pinball machine, two pinball machines, and then he found another guy who liked the space, and he brought in some pinball machines — and next thing you know, we have, like, 35 pinball machines.”
Chris is seeking a new home for the machines, Holly says, and he aims to stick around the Middleburg Heights area. His parents plan to help him get the business back up and running.
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However, the bowling alleys will meet a different fate.
“The space will never be used as a bowling alley again,” Holly says, “and as of right now, there are no plans to rebuild any bowling in Middleburg Heights.”
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