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What's next for First Avenue?
by Chris Roberts, Minnesota Public Radio
November 4, 2004

First Avenue went dark this week, but now two former managers say they are confident they can reopen the business and return it to its former glory. (Photo courtesy of First Avenue)

Minnesota's most famed nightclub, First Avenue, went dark this week, after its owner filed for bankruptcy. Two former managers are planning to take control of the beleaguered club and hope to reopen it very soon. Meanwhile, 120 First Avenue employees are now without jobs.

Minneapolis, Minn. — The fight over First Avenue has been going on for years.

Until this past Tuesday, Allan Fingerhut owned the company that ran the club. But he got into a legal fight with Byron Frank, his longtime friend and former accountant.

Frank owns 60 percent of the First Avenue building. Steve McClellan and his partner Jack Meyer are its former operators -- many say they brought First Avenue to greatness. McClellan and Meyer each have 10 percent ownership stakes in the building. Fingerhut fired both of them last June.

Greg Weyandt, Fingerhut's attorney, says in early September the building's owners filed four lawsuits against Fingerhut. He was then served an eviction notice for owing more than $200,000 in taxes and rent.

It's just a real important part of our community, I think. And we hope to build an entertainment facility in that building that will be as good or better than First Avenue was. - LeeAnn Weimar

Weyandt says Fingerhut, who once promised never to let First Avenue close while he was in charge, decided to quit fighting and file bankruptcy.

"When the lawsuits came his accountant told him, quit spending money on lawsuits, quit spending money on lawyers, quit spending money on what's a hobby of yours, and get on a boat and look forward in life and not backward," Weyandt says. "He didn't want to, but at a certain point you can only put so much money into so many lawsuits."

Weyandt says Fingerhut feels terrible about the 120 First Avenue employees who were laid off. For Nate Kranz, the lead talent booker at First Avenue, it's not much of a consolation. Kranz says Fingerhut acted in his own interests, not in the club's or the workers'.

"When he got evicted and didn't pay his taxes and ran up all of his debt, he had lost at that point," Kranz says. "And they gave him a way to get out of it and let all of us be OK, but he wanted to take the path of, 'Let's take everybody down with me.'"

All of the club's equipment and materials, even its name, are now controlled by a bankruptcy trustee. Steve McClellan and his business partner Jack Meyer are planning to reopen the club, most likely under a different name.

LeeAnn Weimar, a former First Avenue employee, is now speaking for McClellan and Meyer. She says the club is a Minneapolis institution.

"It's just a real important part of our community, I think," says Weimar. "And we hope to build an entertainment facility in that building that will be as good or better than First Avenue was."

Weimar says the plan now is to reopen the club -- probably sometime in January. She says first, they have to rebuild the staff, which will take time because several left town after they lost their jobs. She says there's also red tape issues, beginning with obtaining a new liquor license.

"You can't just go downtown and get a liquor license, you have to apply for it," she says. "Insurance is the same situation. It's a financial undertaking, and those kinds of things have to be worked out before anything can be opened in that building."

Weimar says it's the music that made First Avenue a legend, and it's the music they're fighting for. Greg Weyandt, Allan Fingerhut's attorney, is dubious.

"Everybody knows the talk about the ballpark going over there," Weyandt says. "I'm speculating, but it's pretty clear that what they want to do is hold that property until the ballpark goes in, and then knock it down for the increased value. So if they said it's for the music... who am I? I just don't believe it."

LeeAnn Weimar vehemently denies any plans to sell the building or tear it down.

"The people that own that building really want to make this work. They tried to make it work with Mr. Fingerhut, it simply did not for whatever reasons. That is unfortunate I think, but we move on," Weimar says.

Former First Avenue talent booker Nate Kranz says he's excited about McClellan and Meyer coming back to create a new establishment out of the ruins of First Avenue. He's confident the new club will have the same spirit and philosophy as the old.

"It will be really nice when the landlord and the business are on the same team, rather than hating each other, and constantly fighting and suing each other," says Kranz. "Because for the last five years, that's pretty much what's been going on."

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