asbury-lanes

Asbury Lanes reopening soon; Bowery Presents booking shows at renovated NJ club

Asbury Park, NJ’s iconic Asbury Lanes closed for renovations in 2015 with plans to reopen in the spring of 2016. There was some worry that the venue and bowling alley would have to be demolished due to structural problems but, as NJchamber.com notes, Asbury Lanes restoration was part of real estate investment company iStar’s development plan for Asbury Park, and the venue is now set to reopen Memorial Day weekend.

Asbury Lanes is now run by Salt Hotels who say it will remain the “the same anything-goes local hangout it always was and reborn as a state-of-the-art music venue.” (Photos in the gallery above make it look somewhat fancier than the one you may remember.) Salt Hotels’ David Bowd told NJCC, “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 venue will now include a diner, and the bowling alley will features a new “back to the future” pin-setting system designed by Brunswick and will be unique to Asbury Lanes.

On the music side, Bowery Presents will exclusively book the venue with “a curated mix of both leading and up-and-coming talent to the Lanes’ re-invented stage.” The venue now has a capacity of 726 and they plan to host around 150 shows a year. The Asbury Lanes show schedule has yet to be announced. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, Live Nation (the main competition for Bowery’s parent company, AEG) seems to have taken over much of the rest of Asbury Park. The USA Today Network reports that Live Nation signed a “multiple year agreement” to continue booking shows at the Stone Pony, the Stone Pony Summer Stage, the Wonder Bar, the Paramount Theatre and Convention Hall (all of which are operated by Madison Marquette).