OTR event center The Transept opens Thursday

UPDATE: The event center will celebrate its official grand opening tomorrow, Thursday. The bar, which will be open to the public, should open within a few weeks.

The story below originally published on Aug. 25.

Scaffolding in front of a church built in 1867 in Over-the-Rhine came down Friday, a sure sign that The Transept, the new event center and bar that’s taking the space, is getting closer to opening.

Indeed, the new venue at 1205 Elm St. is booking its first events for mid-September and has a grand opening celebration planned for Thursday, Oct. 8.

Josh Heuser, head of Over-the-Rhine-based creative marketing and event planning firm AGAR, and Michael Forgus, managing partner of Funky’s Catering, are behind the $4.7 million renovation of the building that had sat vacant since 1993. (An inscription on the front of the church reads “St. Johannes Kirche,” reflecting its days as a German Protestant congregation. More recently, it was home to the Greater Apostolic Bethlehem Temple Church.)

Heuser said the space was intentionally set up much like a large house, with lots of rooms “for people to break off and celebrate moments.”

A bar, the South Tap Room at Transept, will be open to the public six days a week (likely Tuesday-Sunday), during traditional bar hours. Located on the street level and accessible through an entrance at 12th and Elm, it will be a smaller space, 1,200 or 1,300 square feet, with room for about 50 people.

Heuser describes the style as “bohemian Baja” or bungalow, “very homey, very relaxed.” The color scheme will be white and brown – a white compressed glass bar top and leather furnishings, for example.

The bar will have a light food menu by Funky’s, which is also handling catering for the private event spaces. (A full kitchen will be set up in the basement.) Heuser said he’s in talks with a local bar operator to run the craft beer and cocktails program.

“The idea is really using everyone’s expertise to create the best experience possible,” Heuser said.

On busy nights, the bar can be combined with the adjacent North Tap Room, if that space isn’t rented out for a private party. That side will be similar in size and style to its neighbor, with a long communal table and booths, plus an outdoor patio off to one side.

Behind that, the Registrar Room, with a navy palette, wainscoting and dark wood ceilings, will have “collections” as its theme. A collection of 20 Cincinnati-based photos, including local music and architectural shots, will adorn the wall. A large mahogany bookcase across the back will hold a collection of books.

For couples who book the room as part of their wedding celebration, there’s another feature: They can write letters to each other in the books there and come back and review them later, perhaps on an anniversary. That room has space for 80 for a seated dinner or 115 standing.

The main part of the event center, which has its own entrance from Elm Street, is upstairs. It’s comprised of the Assembly, on the main floor of the church, and the Gallery, the church balcony. (It’s possible to rent one or the other, though there would never be events going on in both at the same time.) Those areas combine to hold 600 standing or 240 seated (200 if there’s a dance floor).

In that part of the space, original wood beams were revealed after workers removed a drop ceiling that had lowered the soaring ceilings about 25 feet. The original wood floors are being refinished, and the original stained glass windows there, as in the rest of the building, has been repaired. (There are 89 such windows in all.)

For weddings, a bridal suite with a vanity and seating will be set up in the old bell tower.

In keeping with its name, everything will flow into the transept, which divides the building in half. That area will house restrooms, and people from events in different rooms are likely to intersect there, Heuser said.

He said he expects the bar to draw patrons of the nearby arts organizations in the area, but he also expects to send folks out into the neighborhood, say during a break in a corporate function or after a wedding.

“A lot of these events are over at 11 or 12, and you’re going to have (200 or more) people there,” he said. “They’re not going to fit in our bar, so they’re going out into the neighborhood.”

For Heuser, getting Transept up and running has been a dream for the last dozen years that he has been involved in bars and restaurants. He’d walked through the building in 2002 or 2003, but at that time, his “appetite was bigger than my stomach,” as he puts it.

When the building went back on the market in 2011, he and Forgus approached 3CDC and told them of their plans. 3CDC bought the building in 2012 with the agreement that Heuser and Forgus would buy it back in a year, when they were ready, Heuser said.

Now, his dream is nearly a reality. Most weekends are booked with events through the end of the year, he said.

“The obvious thing is the wedding industry, but we’re much more than a wedding venue,” he said. “We’re a place of celebration. What do you want to celebrate? I think we can cater to that at any size.”

The Oct. 8 opening celebration will be a ticketed event to benefit the Over-the-Rhine Chamber’s programs. Tickets,available online, are $15 for members or $20 for non-members and include passed appetizers and two drinks. For more information, go to http://thetransept.com/