Landmark bowling alley to come down for new development
BY MIKE WARREN
EDITOR
MARSHFIELD – Rose Bowl Lanes would be demolished to make room for a multi-business development, under a conditional use request granted by the city’s Plan Commission.
The Commission on July 19 voted unanimously in favor of a commercial group development for the property, located at 1600 N. Central Ave. The conditional use was granted to Shannon Eldridge of Janesville-based Halifax Development.
The proposed site plan shows two structures on separate parcels with shared parking and drive aisles on the current Rose Bowl Lanes site. Future land use plans include a modern-day car wash on the northern end of the parcel, along with associated vacuum stalls. On the southern portion of the property, plans call for a two-tenant commercial building, including a retail component along with a fast-casual, quick-serve restaurant with a drive-thru and outdoor patio.
This photo, another location that already exists, gives you a sense of what the new car wash might look like. No renderings for the restaurant and retail space have been provided, since those facilities are still in the early stages of the design process.
Lighting, signage and stormwater plans have not yet been submitted to the city, according to Planner Steven Wiley. “These plans will be submitted to staff for site plan review,” Wiley told Plan Commissioners. “Our city Engineer Tom Turchi actually has requested that they (Halifax) submit a traffic-impact analysis, because he wants to make sure, especially for traffic turning left from Central Avenue into the site, that we’re not gonna have back-ups and potential for collisions there,” Wiley added.
The site plan maintains two access drives off of North Central Avenue and a single access point off of North Chestnut Avenue. The site is a double-fronted lot. The developer would split the parcels through the middle of the site, but both parcels would maintain their shared parking and drive access. Therefore, the resulting two parcels would effectively continue to operate as one site.
The bowling alley opened in 1962 as Janes Lanes. In 1986, brothers Jim and Jerry Leonhardt bought the business and renamed it Rose Bowl Lanes, in honor of their previous business, Little Rose Bar and Bowl, which was destroyed by fire earlier that same year.
