After five-and-a-half years of trying to turn a profit, the future of the Brigham City Family Fun Center is uncertain.

A group of investors and manager Bill Partridge met Tuesday to discuss the details of a plan to cut costs for operating the facility while a decision is made on what to do with the property.

The bottom line for the investors is simple, Partridge said, is all about the bottom line.

“They want their money out of it.”

According to Partridge, the investors have discussed selling the property completely, or tearing down the building that houses a bowling alley, miniature golf course, ice cream parlor and dance hall. “They’ve been very good to wait five-and-a-half years, but now they want something out of it.”

For that five-and-a-half years, Partridge has been renovating the building, which was once considered a scourge of the community.

“It used to be called the ‘dope and drug den,’” said Partridge. Police told him there used to be as much as a drug bust a week at the building.

Now, he said, the facility is a clean, family-friendly environment that has been a benefit to the community. Handicapped and mental illness groups regularly use the bowling alley for their clients and patients, and has hosted benefits for Primary Children’s Hospital, as well as local residents. He said he has heard much vocal support from the community for the facility, but vocal support doesn’t pay the bills.

“I don’t want it to all go for naught,” he said.

Partridge is concerned that if the investors sell the building as-is, it may return as a home for ne’er-do-wells and other unsavory characters. On the other hand, if they tear it down, he’s concerned that the community will lose a quality gathering place.

“You need a place where people can come and have wholesome activity with the family,” he said.

Partridge, an engineer by trade and owner of a mortgage company in Provo, said there’s nothing for him in the deal regardless of what happens to the center. As part of the proposal he offered investors to save the facility, Partridge will lose his position as manager on October 1 so someone else can take the position, hopefully at a lower salary.

Over the years Partridge has lowered prices on everything to attract business, and turn a profit, but bad economy and a “real slow summer” has brought the issue to a head.

The Fun Center employees handed out flyers during Peach Days advertising a “re-opening” special that started September 14 and runs until Monday, September 28. Prices for bowling and shoe rental were slashed, Partridge said, to just $3 per game and $2 shoe rental. As part of the promotion, Bonnie Biskey, a resident volunteering her time to the center, approached local businesses and asked for prize donations that would be given away in daily drawings and a grand-prize drawing to bowlers.

“It’s a good family place that I’d hate to see go away,” Biskey said about volunteering her time.

Partridge said that the promotion is more than it seems. Investors will use the results to help them determine the fate of the center.

“We’re trying to save it,” Partridge said. And he hopes the “we” includes more members of the community than just him and Biskey.