Byline: Staff reports
When Chesapeake residents want to dine, shop, watch a movie or playminiature golf and video games, all they have to do is cruise the Greenbrier area.
Merchants, lured by thousands of young families choosing Greenbrier homes, offer a variety of ways for entertainment-seekers to while away time.
Bowling, ice skating, billiards and laser games soon will join the list.
Allan B. Harvie Jr., a Richmond businessman, announced this week that he plans to build a sports complex that will include two ice-skating rinks and a 32-lane bowling alley.
One of the ice rinks will be Olympic size, 200 feet by 100 feet, the other will be National Hockey League size, 200 feet by 85 feet.
Fun-seekers will be able to play tag with high-tech lasers, or play pool on one of 12 billiard tables. There will be a lounge, a 4,000-square-foot arcade center, a soft-play area for kids, a nursery, a fitness center, meeting rooms and party rooms.
There will be a professional team locker room, because Harvie hopes to entice the Hampton Roads Admirals hockey team to use his complex for practices.
All told, the complex will be 96,000 square feet and will cost $6.5 million.
The project is to be constructed in two phases. The first phase, which includes one of the ice rinks, will get underway within two months. It's scheduled to be finished in late August.
Construction on phase two, which includes the second ice rink and the bowling alleys, will begin early next year and be finished by the summer of 1997.
In a news release, Harvie said he chose Greenbrier for the same reason other merchants have.
``This area of Chesapeake is rapidly becoming a major shopping and entertainment center for the Tidewater resident,'' he said.
Other recent additions to the fast-growing Greenbrier section include Circuit City and Regal Cinemas Funscape, also an entertainment complex. Several shopping centers are under construction now.
Harvie estimates that his center will employ more than 180 full- and part-time workers.
``We plan on this facility being a major destination point for enjoyment seekers of all ages,'' he said.
