What’s McMenamins Elks Temple looking like inside? Here’s a sampling
When McMenamins opens its Tacoma Elks Temple on April 24, it won’t look anything like it does today, at least on the inside.
A hard-hat tour for the media Wednesday involved plenty of stair climbing, sawdust and ongoing construction.
The end result is becoming easier to see, amid the ballroom murals, elaborate light fixtures and a tiki bar in place now where the pool used to be.
The tour was led by Brian and Dan McMenamin.
“We’re getting there,” Brian McMenamin said at the start.
Every day is a race to opening day. For example, the balconies for the sixth-level north side hotel rooms were installed this past weekend.
The entire project, now hitting upwards of $36-37 million, has gone through various phases.
“This room, the building was a wreck,” Brian McMenamin said in the freshly painted and light-fixtured ballroom that will host musical events. “There were waterfalls coming down the stairs.”
“We’ve had some really great craftsmen working here. We’ve been here now about 15 months. We’re of course over budget and out of time and all those great things that go with projects like this, but it’s a labor of love and really starting to pop.”
Many of the items on site are from other places. Others are being restored, such as the original Elks pool tables.
“We’re bringing them back,” Brian McMenamin said.
The property includes a seven-barrel brewery with 16-tap tasting room and will offer 18 signature cocktails in the tiki bar, coffee drinks and other libations. There will be a water feature next to the tiki bar, which is just inside the property’s Commerce Street entrance.
The idea is for customers to get a drink and wander the property, which includes five bars, two kitchens, a restaurant, 45 guest rooms, game room, fireplaces and music venue, among other features.
The guestrooms, like other McMenamins properties, come with names of local individuals, current, former, past, present.
There’s a secret bar, called The Vault, under one of the property’s sidewalks.
“This is a good hideout,” said Dan McMenamin.
Much was made during the tour of how the site used to look. One picture on an easel showed the graffiti-covered interior, which the McMenamin family decided to incorporate into the site’s history.
Some of the graffiti artists were asked to come back and paint new art in at least two rooms.
How did they find those artists?
“We just put the word out in the art community,” answered Brian McMenamin.
Level 2 has the 700-capacity Spanish Ballroom (with a customized sound system) and Spanish Bar, which has seating for about 50, six to eight different gin and tonics, sangrias and more. The actual wooden bar, found at Long Beach Peninsula, said Brian McMenamin, had a “Made in Tacoma” tag on it.
“It’s home,” he declared.
The goal is to have outdoor seating with that bar.
The tour offered a sweeping view of Tacoma and the waterfront from the roof, which survived snowmaggedon intact, though some of the exterior trim took the brunt of the snow melt.
Normally the roof won’t be open to the public.
Along with the city skyline, there’s a birds-eye view of Old City Hall. In September, Eli Moreno with Surge Tacoma was selected for redevelopment negotiations for the site.
Previously, the McMenamins were in the running to make a bid and redevelop it along with Elks.
Two words as to why that never happened:
“Phenomenally expensive,” Dan McMenamin said, gazing over at it from the Elks’ roof. “It’s hard to even imagine, and those were just the cursory, exploratory numbers.”
The Elks Temple has been the most challenging project to date for the Portland-based operation’s collection of pubs, restaurants and historic hotels across Washington and Oregon.
“They’re all big projects. They all have their own nuanced problems and issues,” Dan McMenamin said. “This one was probably the most savagely beaten building of any building we’ve restored, more so even than Edgefield.
“Edgefield was in bad shape; this one was really bad just because of the years of neglect.”
The hardest part, he noted, “is always the difference between the idea of what you’re trying to build and actually building it.”
The family is more than ready to see this site open.
“We’ll get it open,” he said. “We have to. The longer you wait, the more it costs.
“But we’re in a good spot to get it open on time.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2019 at 5:12 PM.
