New upscale lounge aims to be nightlife flagship
A roughly 35-foot bar backed by a towering bottle rack and fountain.
Members-only liquor lockers for entertaining business guests.
A large outdoor patio and a separate upstairs lounge that can be rented for the evening.
For three local businessmen aiming to open an upscale nightclub in downtown Spokane, it’s not a bad list of features. Even their chosen name, MarQuee Lounge, suggests this bar is meant to be the headliner of the city’s nightlife.
Co-owners Jeremy Tangen and Matt Goodwin searched for nearly a year for a location suitable to fill what they saw as a void in Spokane’s club scene: a swanky lounge. They settled on a 6,000-square-foot, two-story former bank office in the Fidelity Building, 522 W. Riverside Ave. Delayed by permit issues, they hope to open next month.
Spokane has seen swanky clubs before. Now-defunct Ankeny’s operated on the top floor of the Ridpath Hotel, and glitzy casino Havana’s had a dress code.
But Tangen and Goodwin think they can sustain the venture by appealing to twentysomethings and an older crowd that might enjoy Twigs Bistro & Martini Bar.
Modeled after a club in Vancouver, B.C., the lounge will emphasize high-end liquors, with expensive Grey Goose Vodka contributing bottles to fill the towering rack, the owners said. “We wanted to put significant emphasis on the bar and social side” of the experience, Tangen said. “You can see the bar down the entire first floor.”
Tangen, 24, is a partner in the Cathedral Point condominium project on the lower South Hill. Goodwin, 31, is a bar-scene veteran and a partner in downtown bar The Blvd.
MarQuee will offer food – items people can eat without setting down their drinks. Even the bathrooms – the partially completed main women’s lavatory sports pink walls and glass tile – are meant to entertain, Tangen said.
“Hate it or love it, it’s still something you talk about, and it’s still something people want to come down and see,” he said.
A small stage will host acoustic shows and deejays If things are too festive, patrons can take an elevator or stairs to a separate upstairs lounge, also available for private parties.
A VIP balcony overlooking the main bar includes a bank of wood-and-glass lockers, which members can request be filled with their choice of liquor that servers will offer to guests.
Target sought for South Hill
Developer representatives and Southgate neighbors met again Thursday in a last-ditch effort to compromise on design concepts for three parcels near South Regal Street and the Palouse Highway where big-box stores are proposed.
And while a Home Depot long has been on the table, neighbors have chattered about a Wal-Mart or Target appearing there. The latter is a concrete possibility for the site southeast of Regal and the highway. A memorandum signed by the parties and presented to the Spokane City Council on Monday specifies “no single building footprint will exceed 105,000 square feet excluding that portion of building open to the outside that includes a garden center, and the Black property may have a building footprint of 135,000 square feet solely for a Target store.”
“It would really preclude big boxes other than a Target store, and I really believe the neighborhood’s majority wants a Target store,” said developer Dave Black, CEO of NAI Black. “They’re waiting for us to get it zoned, and once we get it zoned then they will make us an offer on the site.”
But resident Cheryl Gwinn said, “It might be one of the better options of the big-box, but it’s still going to be a big-box.”
Group won’t appeal Wal-Mart
A Pullman advocacy group opposed to a new Wal-Mart Supercenter on the city’s south side won’t appeal its case to the Washington Supreme Court, it said this week.
A state appeals court earlier this month dismissed the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development’s challenge to the 223,000-square-foot store. In a statement, members urged the city to renegotiate with Wal-Mart over traffic concerns.
“PARD has always taken the position that we would pursue a legal remedy only so long as we felt we had a significant chance of victory. Close scrutiny of the District Court opinion along with our lawyers led us to conclude victory at the next level was very unlikely, so we chose not to appeal,” member Judith Krueger said in the statement.
Sandwich shop returning to mall
A longtime downtown sandwich shop displaced from its location next to Nordstrom a decade ago by the River Park Square project returns to the mall this fall.
Sandwich Gardens will occupy a 1,000-square-foot second-level space formerly occupied by Teddy Bear Junction, which closed earlier this year, according to a mall news release. The shop moved to the Heart Institute after 23 years downtown.