Big Al’s is a sign of Vancouver’s coming of age
Look all you want, but you won’t find a state-of-the-art family fun center comparable to Big Al’s anywhere nearby. Not even in Portland.
At 60,000 square feet, such a massive entertainment facility is a clear sign of things to come for the city.
"Vancouver is really growing up," said Big Al’s co-founder Dan Kirkwood. "When I was growing up here (mid-1980s), Vancouver was just a neighborhood to Portland, but now there are lots of new fine dining establishments and other attractions that keep people from crossing the river."
A golden turkey
Kirkwood said the timing felt right to hatch the idea of Big Al’s, which will offer, among other things, more than 30 lanes of bowling, a restaurant and sports bar with stadium-like tiered seating, pool tables and a modern arcade. Kirkwood’s father, Al, who retired after 39 years in 2004 as senior VP of Kiewit Construction, a civil construction firm, cooked up the idea after a trip to Bend, where he visited a similar family fun bowling facility. He talked his son Dan, also with a construction background, into moving back to the area to partner up on the plan to build on newly acquired land at 18th Street near 164th Avenue. Before they got too far ahead of themselves, their development company, Kirkwood and Kirkwood, consulted the experts, and the stars proved aligned. In fact, unbeknownst to them, others had considered similar plans.
"We didn’t know it at the time, but Brunswick Lanes had already conducted a demographic study with plans to put a facility on the exact spot we’re building on."
In April 2005, they decided to commit to the plan after consulting a more specific soothsayer: bowling marketing specialist Bill Kratzenberg of the Atlanta-based Bowling Marketing Services.
That’s right, a bowling marketing specialist. Who knew?
Kratzenberg has 46 years in the bowling business, and has owned 360 bowling centers in his career. Since 1998, Kratzenberg has made his living analyzing the market, which supports nearly 5,000 bowling centers nationwide.
"(Vancouver) just looked like a massive market that didn’t have enough bowling," Kratzenberg said. "It’s a dynamite business these days, if you have the right amount of lanes and modern facilities."
Kirkwood said when Kratzenberg came back smiling from ear-to-ear after looking at the community, they knew they were on to something.
"He told us the only other market that compares to East Vancouver is outside Denver, Colorado," Kirkwood said. Vancouver’s east side has seen a 78.5 percent increase in population over the past 15 years, and more than 2,400 people work at eight companies within five miles of Big Al’s.
A perfect game
But with existing bowling centers in Vancouver, Big Al’s is not going for the strike with the bowling angle alone. The owners hope to pick up the spare with their state-of-the-art sports bar.
"We’re hitting everything," Kirkwood said. "There’s no sports bar like this in Vancouver."
He’s not kidding, and perhaps he should include the metro Portland area in his statement. Sports fans will be able to enjoy stadium seating, a sky box and sports coverage on a 36-by-8-foot jumbo-tron projection screen. Fans can watch one game on the massive screen, or multiple contests projected on sections of the screen. That’s enough to get people from Medford, and maybe even some Canadians, to come down for a game.
In designing the sports bar, the Kirkwoods say they were surprised to learn that in other markets, women enjoy going to the game arcade while their husbands whoop it up in the bar. So they threw one of those in also, and included grown-up-style prizes for the game players, such as weekend getaways and gift certificates.
"Again, we’re hitting everything," Kirkwood said. "We’re offering better food as well. A lot of places that offer bowling provide pretty basic food, but we plan to have the best burger in town, and a pretty diverse menu for our customers."
A Portland pull
Kirkwood said that since hatching the idea of Big Al’s, he’s heard talk of the Portland market showing interest. He said they never considered the Portland market when planning the project.
"We didn’t think that we could attract people across the river," he said, "but now we’re starting to think otherwise."
This makes sense when considering there is nothing like Big Al’s in Portland.
So, is Vancouver growing up? It is to the retired bridge builder who created a playground.
