Courtesy: City of Lawrence

One of downtown’s more iconic buildings is set to be back in business soon. As we’ve previously reported, the former Round Corner Drug building is set to become a restaurant. Now, I have more details after talking with the owners of the new establishment.

Kansas City restaurateurs Zach Marten and Bret Springs hope to have RND Corner Grille open by late next week. The duo told me the restaurant will be a classic American grill, and one of the features of the business will be the old building itself.

The Round Corner building, if you don’t know, is located at the southwest corner of Eighth and Massachusetts. The building dates back to 1866, and for most of those years it housed a drug store. When Round Corner Drug closed in 2009, it was the longest running pharmacy in the state.

Marten and Springs wanted to play up some of that history. The pair had an approximately 20-foot long mural commissioned for an inside wall of the restaurant. The mural is based off of a 1911 photo that shows Woodard Drug store on the corner and a trolley vehicle in the street.

Sweet mural painting going on at new @RNDCornerGrille 801 Mass. opening soon! Great food (and AV) #LFK pic.twitter.com/MYzmZ0WTBc

— MSM Systems (@msmsystems) November 19, 2015

“We really wanted to create a design that highlights the building,” Springs said. “It is such a great building and we wanted to do something that was a bit of tribute to what has been here before.”

During the remodeling process, crews actually found an old porcelain sign advertising Round Corner Drug. It will be incorporated into the building’s interior. The interior of the building has undergone some changes since it was last used as Intorno, a short-lived Italian restaurant. The duo has added a new bar in the center of the room and rearranged some other spaces.

The pair hopes to create a casual atmosphere but something more upscale than your traditional sports bar and grill. In fact, they have a specific feel in mind.

“It is a restaurant, but we also really want it to feel like a hotel lobby bar where you can feel comfortable hanging out,” Springs said.

(No word yet on whether it will be the type where you are expected to tip the bellboy for giving you a ride back to your room on the luggage cart. I’ll let you know what I find out on that.)

As for the food and drink at RND Corner Grille, the bar will have 16 taps of beer, with a heavy emphasis on craft brews. Four of the taps will be seasonal that rotate often. Classic cocktails and a selection of wines also will be offered.

I didn’t get to see the full menu, but I’m told it includes a variety of sandwiches — a dish called Grandma’s Chicken Salad Sandwich is included — but there’s also some dishes that are a bit beyond the normal grill menu. For example, the appetizer menu includes a spread of smoked trout, and several entrees feature salmon, duck and trout, in addition to more traditional offerings like chicken and beef. Salads also will be part of the menu. The restaurant has hired Danny White, a former chef from The Capital Grille, to run the food operations. Prices are expected to be about $9 to $15 for lunch and about $12 to $25 for dinner. Eventaully, the pair — which operate Coal Vine on the Country Club Plaza and Westport Ale House in Kansas City — plan to offer a weekend brunch menu too.

“We’re going to work really hard to create the right atmosphere,” said Marten, who is familiar with Lawrence through his time as an undergrad and a law student at KU. “You can have a good meal with no ambiance, but when you have a good meal with good ambiance it really makes the experience so much better.”

Look for one significant change in 2016 that will add a different feel to the restaurant. Marten said the business has won approval from the city to install tilt-up windows along the north wall of the restaurant. That means the restaurant essentially will become an open-air establishment during certain times of the year. The tilt-up windows will allow free flow between the indoor space and the sidewalk dining area on the north side — the Eighth Street side — of the building.

The group tried to win the same approvals for the eastside windows that front along Massachusetts Street, but that proposal didn’t meet the city’s design guidelines for the historic district. Other downtown restaurants also have tried unsuccessfully to bring that open-air idea to Massachusetts Street, but have been turned down. If I’m remembering correctly, RND Corner will be the first downtown restaurant to install the specialty windows and try the open-air concept. It will be interesting to watch how that works, and whether city officials get more pressure from other restaurants to allow the concept on Massachusetts Street.

In other news and notes from around town:

• While we’re on the subject of possible changes to the streetscape on Massachusetts, city commissioners tonight will settle a dispute about whether an arch should be allowed in the downtown.

No, don’t call the moving truck just yet. We’re not becoming St. Louis with its odd pizza and a baseball team that hasn’t even won the World Series since 2011. It is not that type of arch. Instead, Jazz, the new restaurant that we previously reported opened in the former Buffalo Wild Wings spot, wants to install a wrought iron arch near the entrance of its sidewalk dining area.

City planners and the city’s Historic Resources Commission have both denied the project, saying it doesn’t meet the downtown’s historic design guidelines. Officials with Jazz are appealing the decision to the City Commission.

Here’s a look at the arch when it was temporally installed in front of the downtown restaurant:

@LJWorld The Archway would simply connect to each side of the wrought iron fence creating a decorative entrance. pic.twitter.com/L4bnK2itEA

— Jazz Kitchen on Mass (@jazzinlawrence) December 1, 2015

As part of the denial, the city found that the proposed arch was not compatible with the architectural building design, and “was not in character with Lawrence’s downtown.” Officials with Jazz, as part of their letter appealing the denial, said they hope the City Commission can view the arch as “the piece of art that it is.”

If commissioners approve the arch, it will be fun to watch what ideas other restaurants in downtown have for drawing more attention to their locations. The downtown restaurant world is very competitive, and operators are always looking for a way to make their properties stand out.

Commissioners meet at 5:45 p.m. today at City Hall.

• Last week I reported on a few closings or pending closures of some downtown businesses. I’ve got a little bit more information to pass along about what may be coming in a couple of the spaces that soon will be vacated.

At Foxtrot, 832 Mass, store owner Caroline Mathias told me her understanding is some sort of interior/home store is going to occupy the space. I’ve also heard that from another downtown source, but I don’t have further details on who the new retailer will be. But I’ll keep my ears open. As for Foxtrot, the shoe retailer is expected to close by the end of January.

Another business we reported on was Mass Street Sweet Shop, which has closed at 727 Massachusetts. It looked like there was some work already underway there. A downtown source told me that location is going to house one of the escape room businesses that we previously have reported on. In case you have forgotten, there are two business people in town planning on opening escape room businesses, which is an entertainment venue that revolves around putting people in a themed room and giving them elaborate puzzles and tasks to solve to unlock the door in a certain period of time. I’m not quite clear on which one of the two escape room businesses will be locating in that space, but I’ll do some more checking.