Lanes Change

Once a community fixture, Skyway Lanes has hit hard times. Supporters are looking for plans to restore the alleys

By Erik Olson, Staff Writer

Frank Tucker wants to see Skyway Lanes stick around the neighborhood, even though the bowling alley has gone downhill in recent years.
“It would hurt the people around the community” if Skyway Lanes wasn’t around, he said.
Tucker has lived and bowled in the south St. Petersburg area for 25 years, and he says he still meets new people in the neighborhood when he comes to the alley to bowl a couple of times a month. But Skyway Lanes is at the bottom of a deep financial hole, and a change in ownership is the only way residents, employees and even the owner herself think the alley can dig itself out.
Skyway Lanes opened in 1958 and is one of two alleys in all of south St. Petersburg. On any given day, Skyway attracts families, teenagers and senior citizens, all out to have a good time throwing the ball down the lane.

But in recent years, the number of patrons at Skyway has dwindled. The league had about 500 members when current owners Shoshona and Jerry Gross bought the alley in 1995, and that number has dwindled to around 70 this year.
Nationwide, memberships in bowling leagues have also been steadily declining since 1980, said Mark Miller, publications manager for Bowling Incorporated, a magazine for bowlers and alley managers. The American Bowling Congress, Women’s International Bowling and the Young American Bowling Congress have lost between 3 to 6 percent of their members every year since the 9 million member peak 21 years ago, Miller said.

However, bowling alleys continue to thrive because the total number of bowlers keeps increasing. Recreational bowlers—those who hit the lanes occasionally with their friends, co-workers and families—have made up the difference for most of the alleys.
But not at Skyway.

Once people started hearing rumors about Skyway’s financial difficulties and decreasing memberships, recreational bowlers stopped wanting to bowl there, assistant manager Steve Stoddard said. To get those people back, Stoddard said the bowling alley needs a “makeover”—a remodeled snack bar, a new scoring system and refinished lanes.

But Stoddard also knows the heart of the alley—the leagues—must be resurrected, because league members tend to spend more time and money at the alley than the casual rollers and help build its reputation. So he gave one 25-member league an offer they couldn’t refuse this summer: a free vacation to the Bahamas just for signing up. Stoddard saw an advertisement in a bowling magazine for a package of 25 vacations for $49.95 apiece. The bowlers’ league fees paid the expenses, and Stoddard found a marketing tool that snared at least two bowlers who had barely even touched a bowling ball in their lives.
He also found someone interested in bringing Skyway Lanes out of the gutter. Curtis Mawby, who is a service manager at Palmview Apartments and owns his own three-man painting business, joined the league when he heard about the Bahamas vacation and saw an opportunity for a personal and community investment after talking with Stoddard about three months ago.

“I just want to bring (the alley) back to the neighborhood,” Mawby said, adding that a revitalized Skyway would bring more kids into the bowling alley and off the streets.

However, Mawby wants to make the business successful, and he is prepared to spend money to make money. He is working to secure a $300,000 loan from a bank to renovate Skyway, which is how much both Stoddard and Shoshona Gross said would be necessary to get the alley competitive.
But the deal is still not done. Gross said she has four other potential buyers, and she does not know to whom she will sell the alley. She only knows she wants Skyway to remain a community establishment and become an alley strictly for league bowlers and professionals.
Sean Harris, 17, hopes so, too. He’s worked at Skyway for a year and a half, and he’s afraid the neighborhood would suffer if everyone had to go north to bowl because the bowling alley is a gathering place for people.
The neighborhood “would be dead,” he said.

Read More Stories