Club owners reinvent The District.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

A retooling of the Indigo District dance club will be unveiled today, when the venue reopens as The District - a coffee bar by day, bar and restaurant by night, and dance club on weekends.

The business at 13th Avenue and Oak Street in downtown Eugene has been through an extensive interior makeover since its owners closed the doors April 11 to accommodate the transition.

It's also undergone a personality change.

"The old Indigo had a reputation," part owner Libby Adams says. "That's what I found out - it sort of had a rough reputation. It attracted the sort of crowds that were problematic."

"So we had an R.I.P. party, and it's dead," she says. "Now we're catering to a different crowd."

(A Eugene man was convicted of attempted murder this week for a shooting last year in the Indigo District parking lot.)

In its earlier incarnation, Indigo District "got pigeon-holed as a hip-hop club, and we couldn't be further away from a hip-hop club," Adams says.

In its new incarnation, The District will continue to offer occasional hip-hop events. But it will just as often feature musical genres ranging from jazz to metal to Christian.

"We have all kinds of music," Adams says. "We're everything."

The club's owners - a group of family members and friends that operates as a limited liability company - have spent about $90,000 on this month's remodel, with the?goal of an upscale look?that will attract a mixed?clientele of college students and the downtown office crowd.

The District will have a handcrafted glass bar, newly refinished concrete floors, updated lighting and a lighter paint job throughout. There are also backstage improvements, including a projection system and smoke machines.

"It was run down," Adams says. "But it's such a great space, we thought it could look a lot better than it did."

Eugene designer and personal stylist Blu Clark was hired to head the makeover effort.

The new club will be open during the day as a coffee shop offering both Stumptown and Wandering Goat coffees, along with pastries and free Wi-Fi Internet service.

The coffee shop portion of the business will operate as a nonprofit corporation, with all profits going to a fund that will help pay the veterinary bills of pets whose owners cannot afford treatments.

"That's the purpose of the coffee shop," Adams says. "It lives in The District, because the space is available."

At night, The District will become a 21-and-over bar with a light menu of appetizers and sandwiches including both regular and vegan versions of Philly cheesesteak hoagies. It will offer frequent concerts, as well as weekend dance parties.

"We'll have the dance parties, but in a safer and more upscale, modern environment," Adams says. "We're going to make sure, with our security team, that everyone is taken care of."

The Indigo District was opened in 2003 by Justin Gibbs, who remains a part of The District's ownership group but is now a silent partner.

The club took over a space that had been empty for more than four years after the closure of Fields Restaurant and Brewpub.

Fields opened in 1994 in the space vacated by Brother Jonathan's outdoor store, but its operators were unable to keep up with the debt on their brewing equipment.

The building itself was purchased in 2001 by downtown investors Tom Connor and Don Woolley, along with Oregon Electric Station owner Cordy Jensen.

That group sold the building in 2007 to a limited liability company that includes commercial real estate broker Tim Campbell and University of Oregon football coach Mike Bellotti, according to county and state records.