Eight months after the last bowling ball rolled in Vicksburg, the clatter of pins is expected again.

Investors with Vicksburg Entertainment Group LLC plan a 20-lane bowling alley and video arcade on two acres on Holt Collier Drive off U.S. 61 North, principal developer Henry Patel said.

Tentatively set to begin play in August as Cosmic Lanes, the business will have additional attractions including a bar and likely will be operated as a non-smoking venue. Further additions may be dictated by what develops in two vacant tracts around the site, situated near other retail and food outlets established in the past five years.

“We’ll have a nice entertainment feature here,” Patel said.

An access road will be built in front of the property to allow entry to a proposed 88-space parking lot from either 61 or Thalweg Drive to the immediate south.

If completed, the venue plugs one gaping hole in Vicksburg’s entertainment scene — left in tatters in the past 18 months with the closing of the Red Carpet Lanes in May and the shuttering of the Pemberton Mall cinema in December 2006. The bowling alley’s planners hope to see it blossom into a regional entertainment draw as plans allow.

“There’s nothing to do in this city,” said Patel, also a local hotelier. “People are going to come from Tallulah, Port Gibson, Rolling Fork, all these cities around us to come and bowl.”

Four bowling venues operate inside Hinds County, including three in Jackson and one in Clinton.

Leagues had operated for years at the Red Carpet on Clay Street until declining business and structural problems with the building forced its closure.

The laid-back, but family-oriented atmosphere is what Patel aims to duplicate.

“We will have everything a bowling alley usually has. We just need some league bowlers here,” Patel said.

Private investment in an entertainment attraction has city officials brimming with hope for the venture’s success.

“I’m encouraged and excited about it,” Mayor Laurence Leyens said, adding he has tracked the group’s plans for some time.

Like many in the public and private sector, Leyens wants to see something more than what he described as “empty promises” to bring more healthy diversions to the area.

As for returning the silver screen to Vicksburg, plans past property shopping have not been announced. City officials have negotiated redevelopment with operators of the Pemberton Square mall for at least three years, with nothing concrete to date.