By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
After months of renovation and refurbishing, Cool Crest Garden Golf is ready to reopen this weekend.
The St. Joseph gem located along the Belt Highway had been unoccupied since October 2017, but Rick Gilmore and his wife Marcia purchased the property on January 6. They have since leased the course to Joe Town Mini Golf.
After months of hard work, Cool Crest will officially reopen Saturday.
"We're ecstatic," Rick said. "We're glad to finish this project. It's been one that's kept us quite busy the last two months. With the other (mini golf courses) opening along with it, it's been a bit overwhelming."
Joe Town Mini Golf has been back open since Easter weekend. Cool Crest was slated to open on May 1, but a few unexpected setbacks pushed opening day to May 8.
Cool Crest will be open from 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to start off with, and closing time will be extended to 11 p.m. once school is out.
Admission will be $9 for adults. Kids ages 6 and up will be $8, and those ages 3-5 will be $6.
Gilmore says all of the original structures and water hazards are still there. But, nearly everything had to be refurbished and most of the greens had to be replaced. Quite a bit of work, especially with three, 18-hole courses.
"We had to paint the concession stand and paint the maintenance building," Gilmore said. "We redid the inside of the concession stand and modernized it. The electrician had to rewire the entire facility."
It's been modernized, but Gilmore says Cool Crest will look just as it did before it shut down.
"Everything is the way it was," he said. "We just replaced motors and painted and reset the equipment and replaced greens that were in bad shape."
The lawn was torn up a bit in order to make repairs underground, but thousand of flowers have been planted all around the holes and walkways.
"It'll look beautiful when it's all said and done," said Gilmore.
Cool Crest's reopening has been a highly anticipated event. The Joe Town Mini Golf and Cool Crest Garden Golf Facebook pages have been keeping patrons updated all winter and spring long on the renovation progress.
Each post and picture receiving hundreds of likes and shares. Needless to say, Gilmore expects a warm reception as people make their way back to Cool Crest.
"Of course we want it to be profitable and pay for itself, but to see people have fun with it is an important aspect of it as well."
You can follow Tommy on Twitter @TommyKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.