‘It was meant to be:’ Pinball Pete’s will live on at new Ann Arbor location

ANN ARBOR, MI -- Bright neon signs, arcade games and the legacy of Pinball Pete’s won’t be disappearing from the Ann Arbor landscape any time soon.

Ted Arnold, co-owner of the iconic arcade, has confirmed he’s signed a 20-year-lease at 500 E. Liberty St. in the Carver-Gunn Building, with the help of Colliers International Ann Arbor. It will keep the business alive, he said, despite plans to demolish Pinball Pete’s current home.

Pinball Pete’s has been in the Galleria building at 1214 S. University Ave. since the 1990s, but the building’s owners are in the works of selling to a company that’s proposing a 17-story apartment high-rise.

“When we first found out about it there was a time when we were like, ‘Wait a minute. Are we out of business?’,” Arnold said, adding he was worried he wouldn’t find enough space to relocate.

As uncertainty began to set in for the arcade’s future, Arnold said the East Liberty Street’s building manager, Scot Greig, approached him with a space that was a former hair salon. Once he met Grieg and the building’s landlord, John Carver, Arnold said he knew moving Pinball Pete’s to this spot “was meant to be.”

The business will occupy the building’s ground floor and its basement, which Arnold said will be around 12,000 square feet - a couple thousand square feet bigger than the current spot.

Arnold has big plans to transform the space, including demolishing walls, reconstructing its front entrance and carving out stairs to lead to the basement similar to what can be found at South U Neon and antique signs and arcade games will line the new space’s front windows.

“It’s going to be super bright and super eye catching,” Arnold said. “The look of this arcade is something I’ve dreamed about, and it’ll be the fruition of a lot of my thoughts and desires.”

Pinball Pete's arcade in the Galleria building on South U in Ann ArborRyan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News

Plans for the upper level of the new Pinball Pete’s will feature the prize counter, quarter machines, air hockey tables and a few other games. As people walk into the basement, they’ll find the arcade’s popular pinball machines, basketball games, pool tables and plenty of other video games.

With the extra square footage, more games will be brought in, including some old-school games from the 60s and 70s that will only cost a quarter to play.

“Everything that made Pinball Pete’s cool and unique is going to be repeated here, but magnified and better,” Arnold said.

Site plans are drawn, Arnold said, but haven’t been submitted to the city of Ann Arbor yet. The timeline for the project is still up in the air, but he said the best-case scenario is construction will take six months.

There will never be a period where Ann Arbor’s Pinball Pete’s will be closed, Arnold said, adding he plans to run the South U location while simultaneously getting the new space ready.

“There will probably be a period where you will be able to go to both,” he said.

Arnold has been overwhelmed with the community’s support, especially during this process of relocating and during the COVID-19 pandemic, when loyal customers came to the arcade’s rescue by helping raise money through a GoFundMe fundraiser.

“If the people hadn’t done those things, then we might not even be having this conversation,” he said.

While the change isn’t something Arnold may have planned for, he said he’s truly excited for the new space.

“All this happened for a reason, and it’s going to be the coolest arcade anybody’s ever been in if I have it my way,” he said.

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