Provo nightclub Atchafalaya relocating to new downtown home
PROVO – It used to host Provo’s only strip club in the mid-’90s, and before that, a country bar called Silver Spur, where a scene from the movie Footloose was shot. And before that, Uncle Mario’s discotheque.
The historic building that currently houses the Atchafalaya nightclub at 210 W. Center St. in Provo, along with several other buildings between 200 and 300 West and Center Street, will face the wrecking ball next year to make way for the proposed Utah County Convention Center.
The 11-year-old nightclub, named after a Louisiana river, will move to a historic downtown Provo building that used to house Provo Craft & Novelty, said Troy Gifford, manager of Atchafalaya. The 20,000-square-foot, four-story building at 295 W. Center St., which has been vacant for the past three years, was sold last month to the owners of Atchafalaya for $1.125 million.
Upgrading the club
“If the plan goes through, it’s going to be an amazing club. They may relocate Atchafalaya or start a new concept. At this point, I don’t know if they’ll keep the Atchafalaya name or change it,” Gifford said. “We’ll probably bring in a restaurant, which will enable us to open earlier in the day to cater to lunchtime crowds. For now, it looks like the dance floor will be on the ground level, and the restaurant on the second. The top floor will be for VIPs, who can eat and look down at the club below.”
Gifford, who has managed the nightclub for 10 years, said he is hoping to hire up to 40 workers for the new club and restaurant – scheduled to open by Dec. 31 at the earliest or July 1, 2010 at the latest. He said he plans to bring in more national R&B, hip hop and reggae acts for the new club.
“Our watering holes need to be upgraded,” said Paul Glauser, Provo’s interim economic development director. Other downtown Provo bars include ABG’s at 190 W. Center St., which features live grunge bands, and City Limits at 440 W. Center St.
“Delegates or seasoned travelers from out of town will want a quality place to get a drink or a meal. If we have older, tired watering holes or bars, that won’t add to their experience of visiting downtown Provo,” said Joel Racker, president and chief executive of Utah Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Salt Lake City has some quality watering holes like the New Yorker. If we have similar clubs or bars here, it will make for a better experience for the visitors.”
“I still get asked by some customers, ‘Where are the strippers?’ ” Wayne Buehler, another Atchafalaya manager, said with a chuckle.
Gifford said Lamar’s owner had brought in strippers in the mid ’90s but pulled them out before the owners of Atchafalaya took over in 1998. The nightclub’s owners then tore out the strippers’ poles and converted them to foot rests for the bar, he said.
In the wake of the recession, which has reduced traffic and business by up to 30 percent over the past two years, Gifford hopes the planned upgrade will help boost the club’s business.
“Our sales are down because people are opting to buy liquor and take it home to drink, and they are also shelling out more for gas and bills, and the clients who’re still visiting our bar are spending less,” he said. But on the upside, since the bar became a non-smoking venue, it has gained a whole new clientele – Brigham Young University students who love karaoke, he said.
Why build now?
At a time when muchpublicized convention center projects like John Q. Hammons Embassy Suites Hotel and convention center in Pleasant Grove and a Frank Gehrydesigned hotel and convention center in Lehi are delayed in part because of the tight credit environment, Glauser said the developers of the 80,000-square-foot Utah County Convention Center near the Marriott are planning to begin construction as early as next Spring.
“The Utah County Convention Center will be built where there are already restaurants, facilities, an arts center, or where things are already in place for people to do,” he said. “You want more visitors and tourists to stay in our hotels, shop at our local stores, eat at our downtown restaurants. That’s why we’re building the convention center.”
For the proposed center, the Redevelopment Agency and Utah County acquired nearly 2.5 acres of property located on the blocks between 200 West and 300 West, Center Street and 100 North.
“The Food & Care Coalition is moving to a building at 300 E. 920 South in Provo by August, while the Mountainland Community Health Clinic is negotiating with the county to lease space at the former Health Department building in southeast Provo,” Glauser said.
Once the architectural drawings are done by early next spring, then the county can go to bid on construction of the center, Glauser said.
“With building costs now 25 percent to 40 percent lower from a year ago, [Utah County] doesn’t want to miss the opportunity to see if we can get the project built for less,” he said. “I don’t know how much it’ll cost to build because we haven’t determined how large it’s going to be yet.
Racker saidthe convention center will be financed with money from a recent increase in transient room tax rates to 4.25 percent. Legislation passed in 2006 allows Utah County to add up to 1.25 percent to the former hotel tax rate of 3 percent.
“Two years ago, the price tag on the project was much higher, about $38 million to $40 million. Now, with lower construction costs, they can build it for anywhere in the high $20 million to low $30 million range,” Racker said. “The question is whether they can afford to build it with the current tax revenues coming in. But there’s demand, and if they wait for the recession to end, they may miss that window of opportunity,” he said.
Half of the proposed twostory center will comprise a ballroom, an exhibit hall with breakout meeting rooms, while the other half will consist of storage space, a kitchen and reception areas. But is there enough public appetite for another convention center in Utah County?
Glauser believes there is enough unmet demand and that there will likely be a lot of interest among hotel developers to build a second hotel in the downtown area once the convention center designs are done.
“The meetings are getting bigger and bigger, and are outgrowing the Marriott and going to Dixie Center in St. George, the Davis County convention center in Layton or the Ogden conference center and other places. Either we build a new facility or the conventions will go somewhere else,” he said.
“BYU is encouraging this because there are other events that they’d like to bring to Provo but can’t right now. Nu Skin has a lot of monthly meetings where they bring in hundreds of distributors. But they’re now going to Salt Lake or Snowbird,” he said.
The county is holding an open house this evening to get public input on the conceptual design of the new convention center in Provo. The open house is from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the ballroom of the Utah County Historic Courthouse at 51 S. University Ave., Provo.
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