Family Bowl Lanes on North Hills Street was scheduled to close Monday, Dec. 31, but Meridian bowlers might not have to wait long for a new bowling home.

Owners of the soon-to-be-closed bowling center have begun the process to introduce a new bowling facility this spring to Meridian’s East Gate Plaza, former Family Bowl Lanes consulting manager M.A. Copeland said Sunday.

Event Zona, a family entertainment center that will include 16 bowling lanes, a trampoline area, an arcade, a pizza kitchen and other entertainment options, will be built in a portion of the old Winn Dixie grocery store, Copeland said. Planet Fitness opened a gym in December in the other portion of the old Winn Dixie.

Event Zona, an independent LLC company, has locations in Tupelo and Columbus, and Meridian would be the company’s third establishment in Mississippi.

“Friday or Saturday night we went up there and met, and he said that he had everything signed up and everything was ready to go,” said Copeland, who managed Family Bowl Lanes for nearly 30 years. “They had to change the dropped ceiling, and they were supposed to get it cleaned out. And the installers are supposed to be in right shortly, and the schedule calls for us to open hopefully in March.”

Equipment for the new facility has been purchased, and a demolition phase and submission of plans to city officials will soon follow, Copeland said.

Remodeling the new facility will take two to three months to complete.

“We hope to be open as early in March as we can,” Copeland said.

The owner of Family Bowl Lanes, Praveen Ravi, sold the complex to Northcrest Baptist Church in August.

Family Bowl Lanes opened in June 1960 and has operated continuously except for a few months in 1965.

Wade Phillips, the associate pastor of Northcrest Baptist, said earlier that with the church being “landlocked,” the bowling alley property would really expand the church’s parking capabilities.