When we first moved to Old Town/Chinatown, we had more space than we had games. But we kept finding classics we had to have, and as we added to our collection, the arcade floor got more and more crowded. With that in mind, we started exploring how we could expand GK while staying in the same location.
After a lot of work, we came up with a plan we like. The only problem was, it cost more money than we had. That is, until we won Stride Gum’s “Save the Arcades” contest! Since we promised to spend the prize money on an expansion, now seems like a good time to take the wraps off our plans and show them to the public.
Below are some stills from a 3d model I built using Google Sketchup. They represent what we’d like to do. Our plans are bound to change in various ways as they become reality, so stick with us and we’re sure you’ll be happy with the final results!
Click pictures to magnify.
This is the view from the front door. You’ll notice that the second floor mezzanine has been extended to the front of the building. There’s also a new wall and door leading to the new kitchen area, with a place of honor for our Dig-Dug stained glass. We’re hoping to leave the central area open, to make it easier to get to the bar on busy nights.
Sitting at the bar, looking at the new seating area. We’ve never been happy with our seating on the “stage”, and hope the bench seating will be a huge improvement.
Don’t worry, Rock Band fans – we’ll have a mini-stage that we can setup for Rock Band Tuesdays, with lots more seating for the audience.
This is the main driving row, relocated to where the stage currently is.
A view of the east arcade, reoriented to have wider aisles. No more getting cut off from the bathroom by two big dudes on stools sitting back-to-back!
Another view of the east arcade.
The new Shooters’ Alley, featuring more gun games.
We’ve never been happy with our restrooms, so we’re hoping to make them better by remodeling them. We’re thinking about using tile with black grout to discourage taggers and provide a canvas for some pixelated video game artwork.
Walking up the curved stairway. There’s a new curved wall on the left, and the DJ booth is still on the right.
Moving upstairs, here’s the view from the top of the stairs. We’re taking out the wall that’s currently there to create a more open space. You may notice a few pins that aren’t in our current lineup – we haven’t bought them yet, but they’re on our wish list!
All the fighting games are grouped together, with more space between them.
Looking at the new space on the east side of the mezzanine. I’m sorry that most of the cabinets are generic – we haven’t had time to go into our storage unit to measure them yet..
Here’s the southeast end of the mezzanine, featuring DDR, the return of Gauntlet II, and more sit-down drivers.
Back at the top of the curved stairs, there will be an upstairs seating area.
The seats will afford a good overview of the arcade.
This side of the west mezzanine will be much as it is now. The far side is all new space.
The view from the southwest corner of the mezzanine. That’s a lot of pinball!
We hope you’ve enjoyed the tour! And we hope that you’ll be able to experience something similar at Ground Kontrol in the not-too-distant future! If you have any suggestions or comments, we’d love to hear from you!
PS Thank you, Isaac, for building the game models!
