Under Construction: MarQuee Lounge

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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 downtown, it’s not a bad list of features. Even their chosen name, MarQuee Lounge, suggests this bar is meant to be the headliner of Spokane 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 an approximately 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 swankier clubs come and go. Now-defunct Ankeny’s operated on the top floor of the Ridpath Hotel, and glitzy casino Havana’s had a dress-code.

But owners think they can sustain the venture by appealing to both twenty-somethings and an older crowd that might enjoy Twigs Bistro & Martini Bar.

Modeled after a club in Vancouver, B.C., the lounge will emphasize vodka and other high-end liquors, with expensive Grey Goose Vodka contributing bottles to fill the towering rack, 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.