Less than a year after opening, the freshly renovated Crofoot Building is making a name for itself as a local concert venue and home away from home for musicians.
Last year, the owners cleaned up one of downtown Pontiac's oldest and most dilapidated buildings, turning it into one of Metro Detroit's emerging music venues. This year, they're cleaning up the bands coming through it.
The owners say they are developing a reputation among bands and fans for the clean facilities. Among one of the favorites is shower and laundry facilities that allow the bands to wash up for free. The musicians line up to use the non-coin-operated machines and showers, and in some cases people are glad they are.
"While they are developing, bands are treated poorly – dirty wet dressing rooms, soggy coney dogs, cold, wet, dirty, tired – that's the impression bands have of their early life," says Blair J. McGowan, owner of the Crofoot Building. "Escape into drugs and alcohol does not seem so counter intuitive to me."
McGowan and company are also working to improve the building while paying down its debt so they can tackle other projects sooner rather than later. Among the on-the-way-soon amenities is a kitchen expected to open later this year.
McGowan and his crew have a long track record for preservation, rehabbing a number of historic structures in downtown Pontiac including Clutch Cargo's. The Crofoot is probably one of the most inspiring of all after McGowan turned the vacant, boarded up and run down building into a sparkling new independent concert venue.
The live-performance venue has a capacity of about 1,000 people, similar to St. Andrews Hall in downtown Detroit. It will also house two corner bars and a pool hall at the southeast corner of Saginaw and Pike streets while maintaining many of features of its long storied history, such as old wood beams.
"We feel very passionate about what we are doing," McGowan says. "It's important to create an intellectual and cultural alternative to the mass produced, materialistic and military-oriented economy. That's what the Crofoot and our lives are about."
Source: Blair J. McGowan, owner of the Crofoot Building
Writer: Jon Zemke
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