A couple area musicians have started the process of rejuvenating the old Elks Club building on North Prairie Street. By the end of this summer, Neal Minella and Jonathan Trobe hope to open the brick building as “The Brass Elk,” a live music venue and bar.
Minella is a member of the bluegrass/outlaw country band Frank F. Sydney’s Western Volunteers. He tells WGIL the inspiration for the new venue comes from the town’s need for a larger place for traveling bands to play.
“The plan is to turn it into a bit bigger of a music venue than we have in town here,” Minella says. “We want to be able to fit enough people in a room to facilitate bigger touring bands coming through the Midwest.”
He says the building is large, so there’s is a lot that can be done with it.
“Initially the first floor is going to be like a bar, we’re just going to make it fun,” Minella says. “We’ll try and get a hold of a bunch of arcade games and stuff like that and just have it be like a cool hangout spot, and then there’s the big back room that has plenty of space for us to do music.”
Knox County Area Partnership for Economic Development President Ken Springer says renovations to the first floor are phase one with future expansions in the pipeline.
