First Ave (the club) vs. 1st Avenue (the street)

It was another busy Friday night at First Avenue nightclub last weekend, with about 2,000 people spread between its main room and 7th Street Entry for the buzz bands Arctic Monkeys and Rural Alberta Advantage. Meanwhile, little else of note was happening on that end of downtown Minneapolis.

Walking through the club during a break in the action, stage manager Conrad Sverkerson shrugged off the usual hectic workload. But he shuddered at the thought of what big nights like this might be like starting next weekend. That's when 1st Avenue (the street) and Hennepin Avenue, too, will be transformed from one-way to two-way streets, probably creating a lot of trouble for First Ave (the club).

"The city has royally screwed us," Sverkerson complained.

In their efforts to make more downtown commuters stop, shop and roll out their dollar bills, city leaders have created a major speed bump for Minneapolis' best known and most bustling nightlife landmark.

The new and inarguably confusing street layout -- with bike lanes nearest the curb, and parking spaces nearer the middle of the street -- wipes out First Ave's load-in area. Bands will have to park their buses and trailers a block away and around the corner on 8th Street. So will all the beer trucks and other suppliers. In the new configuration, they would be blocking a bike lane, metered spaces and probably some of that one new lane of traffic going north.

A block might not sound like that far of a jaunt. But can you imagine lugging 10 cases of Summit beer, a $10,000 soundboard, a $15,000 case of guitars or the entire Wu-Tang Clan herbal supply that far through the snow and ice in February?

On top of that, the First Ave staff figures it will have to hire security workers to safeguard the equipment. Plus, it worries that touring bands might balk at the situation altogether and go somewhere else to perform.

For those who prefer "Tartuffe" to Gwar, do you think the city would ever permanently block the Guthrie's loading dock and make its actors walk through the snow? Imagine how that might have, um, shriveled Ian McKellen's nude scene.

First Ave general manager Nate Kranz said he attended the city's meetings on the new street configurations and voiced his concerns, but his complaints and queries seemed to fall on deaf ears.

"Every single question I brought up, the response was always, 'Well, there are going to be challenges,'" Kranz said. "But at no point did anybody really answer our questions or spell out what the benefits are going to be."

Both sides of the street

City Council Member Lisa Goodman, who represents the Warehouse District, says First Ave and other naysayers along 1st Avenue simply have not been listening. She said the two-way reconfigurations -- which are costing the city about $3 million -- are modeled after similar street makeovers "in numerous other cities" that reignited development and business.

"The purpose of this is so people don't use [those streets] only as thoroughfares to quickly get in and out of downtown Minneapolis," she said.

Goodman suggested that instead of "talking to every waiter and bartender" who works along 1st Avenue, I should focus on the opinions of the business owners.

The Loon Cafe's co-owner Tim Mahoney (not the well known local musician of the same name) is definitely not for the two-way changeup, either.

Mahoney laughingly recalled a Warehouse District business owners meeting in April with Goodman and Mayor R.T. Rybak where the term "European-esque" was used to describe the streets' new two-way aesthetic. He believes the changes are being made at the behest of the commercial real-estate developers "with all the empty storefronts" and not the bars and restaurants that already anchor the area.

"They want to turn it into Uptown," Mahoney said, cringing at the idea. "Nothing about this makes sense."

Cafe Brenda's namesake owner Brenda Langton, another 1st Avenue proprietor, has been on the fence about the conversion but remains optimistic it will work.

"The jury is still out for me," she said. "I understand why it's being done. Now, I'm hoping the experts know what they're talking about."

Fine Line Music Cafe owner Dario Anselmo, who is also the president of the Warehouse District Business Association, sees both sides.

"If we can change the look and feel of Hennepin Avenue especially, I think that can help drive business our way onto 1st Avenue," Anselmo said. "But businesses such as the Fine Line and First Avenue have special needs for loading in bands and parking buses. I hope the city is willing to work with us on those things."

Added Anselmo, "Because it'd be a lot easier for us to be hiring a DJ to play gangsta rap than it is to be in the live music business."

Perhaps the true voice of reason was Tom Hoch, executive president of Hennepin Theater Trust, which runs the Orpheum, State and Pantages theaters. Hoch loves the idea of people finally being able to drop off passengers right outside those theaters -- and especially of seeing that stretch of Hennepin Avenue become more of a walking destination (something everyone wants).

However, Hoch said, "The issue of providing decent loading areas for entertainment venues is a conversation the city could certainly afford to have, because it's always been a difficult situation for us. So I can certainly sympathize with First Avenue's dilemma."

Goodman was not sympathetic to the club, though. She accused First Ave's staff of solely looking out for its best interests. She also said its soon-to-be-obsolete load-in area -- hooded meter spaces that have been in use as long as anybody at the club can remember, and for which the club pays about $120 per night -- is not even a legal loading zone.

"Why should they get any preferential treatment?" Goodman asked.

Whether or not it really is preferential treatment -- giving the club back the load-in area it has used for most of its 39 years -- I think Goodman raises a good question: Does First Ave deserve to be treated as something special, or just another bar in downtown Minneapolis?

chrisr@startribune.com • 612-673-4658