Silos Fun Park is listed for $1.3 million.

The owners of Silos Fun Park have decided to sell the business they bought six years ago. They’ve listed it for $1.3 million.

Donna Olmstead, who co-owns the park, said her husband Brad’s declining health is the reason they are selling.

“It’s time for me to make that transition and start to care for him long term,” she said.

The business includes attractions such as go-karting, axe-throwing, laser tag, and a Cottage Inn Pizza franchise. 

The Olmsteads say they will wait until they find a buyer who will keep the park running. 

“That’s the reason we started so early,” Olmstead said. “Officially, I wouldn’t be able to retire for two or three years, but you don’t know how long this will take if we’re looking for the right person. So we’re committed to stick with this until, Lord willing, you bring me a buyer.”

There are currently three interested parties, Olmstead said, which she feels is encouraging since the couple announced the sale less than two weeks ago. 

Olmstead said they are making this decision with nothing but gratitude for the community and goodwill toward whoever ends up buying Silos. 

“More than anything, thank you. Thank you for the tremendous support that we have had getting up and running. We just absolutely love being able to give back to the community,” Olmstead said. “Whoever chooses to buy this industry, we will support them. We’re from this community, we know how it’s supposed to run, and we can help them.”

Olmstead said she believes that it would be in the best interest of the buyer to keep Silos Fun Park as it is, rather than turning it into a different business.

“What are you going to do with it if you’re not going to run a fun park?” Olmstead asked. “There’s a lot of cement. What are you going to do with it if you don’t continue to run go-karts, and why wouldn’t you want to? It’s been very profitable for us. It’s been a good family business.”

The Olmsteads originally purchased Silos Fun Park to expand their Cottage Inn location, but it has become a vital part of their family, Olmstead said.

“As a person who came from a corporate world where I was working for 12 or 13 hours a day away from my family, to be able to enjoy this and work with my family and play with my family has just been a big blessing,” Olmstead said.

The Olmsteads bought Cottage Inn because Donna Olmstead’s commute to her corporate job was a 35- to 40-minute drive each way, which was taking up too much time to be sustainable for herself and her family.

In order to prevent Hillsdale residents from having to make a long trip to have a fun night with friends or family, Donna and Brad purchased Silos Fun Park and continued to add new exhibits to make it as enjoyable as possible for their customers.

“To watch the people experience the newness of it has been wonderful, especially with the new laser tag and axe throwing,” Olmstead said. “Being able to bring that to Hillsdale, you’re not seeing our population move over into Coldwater to look for laser tag or into Jackson to look for something to do there. They’re staying local.”

Born and raised in Hillsdale, freshmen Caroline Roberts and Ava Fosdick said they have been going to Silos Fun Park for as long as they can remember.

“I’ve had some good laser tags there and one time my whole extended family — even my grandparents — played laser tag and it was pretty fun,” Roberts said. “It was my cousins, aunts, uncles, everyone. I really like the variety of things you can do, you can go with just one friend or a whole big group.”

Fosdick also fondly remembers her experiences at Silos.

“My favorite memory was my class senior lunch where we all went to Silos and played laser tag together. It was a lot of fun,” Fosdick said.

Silos Fun Park is really important for the entire community, according to both Fosdick and Roberts.

“It’d be pretty sad if it were to shut down,” Roberts said. “It’s nice for college or high school students to have something to do.”

Fosdick said she hopes the park can remain open.

“It would be so sad if it shut down,” Fosdick said. “We would have nowhere fun to go in Hillsdale.”