Renovation of Asbury Lanes nears completion
Projected Memorial Day opening for music and bowling venue
The renovated Asbury Lanes has a projected opening for Memorial Day weekend, and waterfront redeveloper iStar has released renderings and details of the project.
Istar, which is also the majority owner of The Asbury hotel adjacent to Asbury Lanes, is keeping the site as a live music and bowling venue. Because of the condition of the building, only the four walls of the original structure were able to be preserved.
The new interior will feature a large performance and event space (shown above), as well as a diner built from scratch which will be open 24 hours in season. Six bowling lanes will be installed, with a unique pin setting system developed specifically for Asbury Lanes by the Brunswick Bowling corporation. Other interior features include an American flag made of red, white, and blue bowling balls and a bowling shoe rental counter constructed from wood salvaged from the original bowling alleys.
“Everyone has an Asbury Lanes story,” said David Bowd, whose hotel management company runs The Asbury hotel and will operate Asbury Lanes. “Emotions ran higher with this project than with anything we’ve undertaken. What mattered to them matters to us: Keeping the soul of this incredible venue while making changes necessary to guarantee its future.”
The 18 lane bowling alley was built in 1962 by the Ayles family who owned and operated it until recent years. In 2004, the family let Meldon Stultz manage the facility and also make it into a live music venue, featuring a wide range of punk, garage and psychobilly bands, as well as others. Stultz installed a stage in the middle of the bowling alley, allowing patrons to bowl on either side of the performers. Jenn Hampton, currently co-owner of Parlor Gallery on Cookman Avenue, managed the Lanes after Stultz. Asbury Lanes closed in 2015 to begin renovations under iStar’s ownership.
Bowd said plans are for about 150 concerts a year. He expects half those dates will feature national and touring bands, mostly booked by New York based concert promoter Bowery Presents, and the other half local New Jersey bands booked by Bowd’s on-site team.
“As we have done at the hotel we will have local artists and bands playing on a regular basis to their own and a wider range fan base,” Bowd said. “We have literally been inundated with many artists contacting us as they are so excited to perform at The Lanes.”
“The bands being lined up range form indie, rock, punk, soul, acoustical, urban and alternative — a real mix reflecting the diverse musical tastes of Asbury Park,” he said.
Bowd said Asbury Lanes will feature various bowling programs including youth bowling with free bowling lessons, blue haired (senior) bowling, local industry night bowling and league bowling nights. Asbury Lanes and The Asbury hotel will be connected by a passageway.
“At the hotel, there’s a performance or event every night…That will all carry over,” Bowd said. “Yes, the Lanes will have incredible ticketed events. But most of the time, it will be open to everyone as a great place to hang in an amazing location.”
The Asbury Lanes project was designed by Anda Andrei, President of Anda Andrei Design in New York, who also designed The Asbury hotel. She serves as the lead creative consultant for all iStar’s waterfront projects, selecting the architects and other design professionals. For the Asbury Lanes project, she chose architect Dominic Kozerski of the New York-based firm bonetti/kozerski.
On handling the exterior of the building, Andrei said, “There’s no flash. No one wants it too polished. This is a meaningful building.” Instead, the structure will be “lit and celebrated” to highlight its heritage and history. “This is going to be the fun, open, wild Lanes everyone loves, except we won’t have to worry that it might cave in,” she said.
The Lanes’ iconic old bowling pin sign will get reinstalled after a painstaking restoration. The building’s exterior brick walls will get power washed, with a new-classic logo painted on the bricks. The ocean-maid mural by local Asbury Park artist Pork Chop will get refreshed and expanded; a real beam of light will stream from the lighthouse in the maiden’s hand. IStar will commission Pork Chop for a second mural, depicting an entangled octopus and squid, on the building’s opposite side.
Interior walls will keep their “many, many” layers of paint, Andrei said. “They have an amazing patina. And there’s significant, authentic stuff under there.” By a happy accident, she said, stark temporary lighting that had been installed during construction will become the Lanes’ permanent lighting scheme. “The construction lighting just looked so cool, we decided to stick with it,” Andrei said.
Though not apparent from the outside, the building required “extensive work,” said Kozerski. Underneath the building’s wood floors, concrete had been laid without foundations; only sand anchored the structure, according to a news release from iStar. The roof required replacement, the lighting systm was no longer adequate and bringing the building up to New Jersey construction codes meant replacing a single entrance with three separate doors, the iStar release stated.
Clair Brothers, the Pennsylvania company which installed speakers at Woodstock, has custom-built the sound system for Asbury Lanes, while Nashville’s Cour Design, whose lighting clients have included LCD Soundsystem and Nick Jonas, will install the lighting system, according to the iStar news release.
During concerts, platforms will cover bowling lanes, allowing for a capacity of 746 — more than double its former limit. The new full-scale, classic diner in the building will rely on local purveyors and farms for its menu of updated favorites, the iStar release stated.
“We want to amplify what’s already here,” said Brian Cheripka, iStar senior vice president. “We have an opportunity to capture Asbury Park’s incredible sense of place through the properties we are developing and although it involved a much greater investment than building a new building, we chose to restore as much original building as we could.”
“IStar CEO Jay Sugarman, also happens to be a passionate bowler and his appreciation of the Lanes goes even deeper,” Cheripka said. “Everyone involved recognized the responsibility in revitalizing a venue with such meaning.”
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