Good Time's plans for a move fade

The Wheel of Fortune and other games featured at the Good Time Emporium in Somerville won't be coming to Brockton. (Evan Richman/ Globe Staff)

A plan to open a huge amusement center and sports bar in Brockton's Westgate Mall area may have fallen victim to the national financial crisis.

The $24 million plan for Good Time Emporium is dead, said Susan Rinfret, a general manager at the company's former site in Somerville.

According to Rinfret, who is assisting Good Time owner Daniel Hayes, Enterprise Bank of Lowell had said it would approve a loan to buy a $14 million, 300,000-square-foot warehouse on Campanelli Drive if the company received licensing approvals from Brockton. But the bank changed its mind, she said.

City Councilor Christopher MacMillan said that Hayes's nephew told him the bank had cited the credit-market crunch for deciding not to fund the purchase.

"The bank said they probably would support something smaller - nothing like $14 million, though," said MacMillan.

The property, in Ward 7, represented by MacMillan, would have undergone a $10 million renovation, and opened in February.

Enterprise Bank CEO Jack Clancy declined to discuss the loan application, but said the bank had not been affected by the credit-market situation and that loans were being handled as usual.

"We're just looking at things as we've always looked at them," he said.

Hayes, a Somerville resident, and his attorney, John McCluskey of Brockton, could not be reached for comment. Rinfret said she and Hayes are preparing to auction off the company's property.

Owners of the Campanelli Drive site, AMB Property Corp., an international real estate company, did not return calls.

Good Time, which closed its longtime location in Somerville last June to make way for an Ikea furniture store, had been expected to receive final approval for pool tables last week from the Brockton City Council.

"We're disappointed and I know they are," said Mayor James E. Harrington. "I think it was going to be a win-win. It's unfortunate."

The proposal had raised worries among some residents and officials that the huge complex would attract crime to a rapidly improving neighborhood. But MacMillan and other supporters had largely overcome those concerns.

"A lot of people had mixed feelings about this place," he said, but research by the Brockton police and city officials into Good Time's operation in Somerville failed to find significant problems.

MacMillan said the complex, with a capacity of 2,500 customers, would have provided 220 jobs and much-needed tax revenue.

Company officials had envisioned the new site as an entertainment hub for the region. It would have been three times the size of the Somerville location, which served food and alcohol, and offered such attractions as batting cages, laser tag, and arcade games.

Mary Waldron, executive director of 21st Century Corp., a private economic-development agency that works with the city of Brockton, said Good Time would have brought economic benefits, such as making use of one of four very large properties in Brockton that are underused.

There still could be hope for Good Time. Waldron said MacMillan and others in city government were interested in exploring whether a downsized version might obtain financing.