City in California makes a loan for new arcade/FEC to open

When I saw this news it had me a little surprised since it always seems like many cities do things to make life harder for an arcade to open these days but that is fairly anecdotal as far as ‘evidence’ is concerned. Either way in a place called Hesperia California, the city is providing a loan to a new operator so they can open up a new FEC called Kids Planet in January that in addition to offering a new arcade, it also will offer a Mexican restaurant (that according to the article will take up most of the 9800 sq ft of space) and a sports bar for customers. The city is loaning up to $340,000 for the project as it appears that the ‘credit crunch’ is making it too difficult for the developer to get a loan through a bank and if you read the comments of locals on the news page where this is being reported, you can see that several aren’t very happy with this deal. I don’t really want to go there and get involved in a discussion about what governments use taxpayer money for but I can understand where some of that frustration is coming from. We’ll just have to wait and see if people take to the idea and support it with their dollars afterwards.

Still, I do find it interesting that I am hearing about more and more people looking into opening an arcade despite all the talk about a recession or a depression in the US. While arcades typically do well in recessions, each one is different and it’s something we’ll have to wait and see on butI have been receiving more mail lately from people asking about what it takes to open an arcade. I certainly wish the best of luck to everyone out there opening up a new place, it is quite a challenge but rewarding when successful.

[Via VVDailypress] [Discuss on the Forum]