By Elliott Brack | A new $6.5 million recreational entertainment center is coming to the former BJ’s Warehouse location at Jimmy Carter Boulevard and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Peachtree Corners with an anticipated opening of around July 1. It will be called Slingshot Entertainment, with electric Go-Kart race courses for both children and adults. There will also be 14 lanes for bowling, Ninja adult and kids obstacle courses, and a full service 100+ seat restaurant and bar in the 130,000 square foot building. In addition, there will be an arcade area, plus conference rooms and party space.
Funded by a family from Washington state and Washington D.C. which has operated indoor Flight Trampoline Parks in four locations of the northeast for the last two years, it anticipates that up to 600 to 700 people could be having fun in the facility at the same time.
Dusten Estes, Cameron Gentry and Dustin Ward , all of Washington state, are the developers behind the operations. The Estes family operates trampoline parks in Springfield, Va., New Britain, Conn.; near Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Albany, N.Y. The family funding the property has operated franchises for Five Guys and Little Caesars operations in Washington state.
Slingshot Entertainment in Peachtree Corners will be their first operation encompassing as many indoor entertainment elements. The all-newly designed Peachtree Corners operation is seen as a prototype for other such venues in the future.
Taking up the most space in the building will be the adult and kids Go Kart areas. There will be 12 adult Go Karts competing in races at any time, and six Go Karts operating on the kid’s track at one time. Slingshot will actually have twice that many karts for each track, with those awaiting their turns being briefed with safety precautions while the first set is racing.
The Go-Karts come from the French manufacturer, Sodi. They have recently arrived at the facility from the European manufacturing site. Slingshot will also serve as a showroom in the Untied States for other firms wanting to see how the karts look and operate. Each of the vehicles is capable of going up to 40 mph, but in the winding, curvy Slingshot Go Kart track, the top speeds for adults will be perhaps 30 mph, and for kids, maybe 18 mph, Keona Blocker, marketing manager, says. Kids may not drive the karts until they are a certain height, anticipated to be 48 inches.
A Sodi Go Kart
Watching its construction area last week, the overall Go Kart track area is enormous, 370 feet long by 145 feet wide. The adult Go Kart area will be 285 feet long, while the kid’s course is 85 feet long. Drawings indicate the challenge of the winding outline of the race course, as workers have yet to start the track layout.
Both the kid’s and adult Ninja play area will be the largest in the Untied States, with more than 12,000 square feet. It will be full of netting to catch the participant in case they fall. Challenging obstacles face the participants to complete the course.
It’s anticipated that the Slingshot will open with at least 100 employees, but at full capacity, more than 200 employees will be required. The area will operate seven days a week, from 10 a.m. until midnight, while on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturday, Slingshot will remain open until 2 a.m.
Slingshot hopes to be a new feather for entertaining in Gwinnett County.
Great Father’s Day idea: Bid on next-to-last Gwinnett history book
Here’s a distinctive idea for Father’s Day if your father is interested in either history, or Gwinnett County. Get him a copy of the award-winning Gwinnett County history, Gwinnett: A Little Above Atlanta. Only two copies remain from the second printing. Bidding for the next-to-last book begins at $80. If you are wanting a copy of this 850 page history of Gwinnett Count, send in your bid by email to elliott@brack.net.
Once a bid is received, subsequent bids must increase by $10. All bidders will be kept alert by email until the deadline. This bidding for the next-to-last book will end at 10 a.m. on Monday June 8. These two books are the last in circulation from the second printing. GwinnettForum, publishers of the book, says that there will not be a third printing. So, if interested in Gwinnett history, now’s the time to move with this bidding. Proceeds from the bidding of the last five books will benefit the Salvation Army.
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