The ownership of the Perryville bowling alley could change hands in the future.
The Knights of Coluhas been in preliminary talks with the City to purchase the bowling alley.
“The Supreme Council, who oversees all the different councils in the country, doesn’t want us to be in the business of running a bowling alley anymore,” Grand Knight Seth Amschler said. “We have been talking about this for more than one year. We approached the City of Perryville about buying the bowling alley to gauge their interest.”
Amschler noted that the bowling alley is used by many for different purposes, whether it is schools for different events, or recently Missouri held state bowling tournaments in Perryville. That is not to mention the bowling leagues and the different organizations that hosts events there as well.
Amschler noted that the talks are in “the very, very early stages.”
“All that has really been done is we reached out to the city and the Parks and Recreation and they sent a team up to look at the building to see what kind of shape that it is in. As far as any type of pending sale, we are not anywhere close to that. We are just trying to feel each other out as a possibility. It’s nothing to alarm anyone that they are not already aware of. No amount of money has been discussed as to what it would be sold for.”
For the time being the bowling alley is still in operation and the Knights of Columbus is still running it as such. While the Knights of Columbus doesn’t want to be in the bowling alley business anymore, the organization the bowling alley business anymore, the organization does not want the center to go by the wayside either. The Knights of Columbus has operated the bowling alley for several decades.
“We want to do our best to keep it as a bowling alley for the citizens of Perryville,” Amschler said. “If it is sold a person could do a lot of things with it. The goal is to keep it as a bowling alley, just not have Knights running it. We are not necessarily equipped to run a bowling alley at this point.”
Many residents echoes that losing the bowling alley would be a loss to the area.
The building itself would need some work.
“There is definitely some things that would have to be done,” Amschler said. “We have been open with the City and let them go through the building.”
Amschler hopes that the bowling alley can be even better than it is now.
“People can come to Perryville and eat at our restaurants and go to the bowling alley,” Amschler said. “It could be a good place for young people to hang out.”
The Republic-Monitor will have a survey on the bowling alley on Thursday to gauge community input.
