Groundbreaking ceremonies were held recently for WhirlyBall’s new 50,000-square-foot facility on a 1.5 acre site at 1823 W. Webster, which is located at the southwest corner of Webster and Elston avenues in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood.
WhirlyBall is an entertainment venue with activities of WhirlyBall and LaserTron. The new venue is adding bowling and meeting/event space for more than 250 attendees. The full venue will be able to host private and corporate functions for more than 700 guests and will offer full service kitchen and bar for any level of catering needs. WhirlyBall will be relocating to the new facility from its current location at 1880 W. Fullerton, which will be razed to make room for the city’s planned reconfiguration of the intersection of Damen, Elston and Fullerton avenues. The current location will remain open until the new building is ready for occupancy.
According to David Brown, project manager leading the project team for Summit Design + Build, the new two-story WhirlyBall facility will be erected out of precast panels utilizing structural steel and concrete filled metal decks. The building will feature three WhirlyBall courts, 12 bowling lanes (eight on the first floor and four on the second), a multi-level LaserTag arena, a combination indoor/outdoor private event space, five party rooms, a full kitchen complete with a large bar and lounge area and 5,000 square feet of office.
Summit Design + Build’s Heath Yarger, project engineer, and Shane Massey, superintendent, will be responsible for the on-site construction of WhirlyBall’s new facility. OKW Architects is the project architect. Chicago-based Studio K Creative is the designer for the project. Completion is scheduled for October 2014.
