A 21-year-old bartender is renovating the former Dixie Theatre in downtown Bryan with hopes of putting the area back on the regional concert circuit.

Eric Sonntag said he signed a three-year lease on the historic building, which has the capacity to seat about 400 concert-goers. The site, which Sonntag intends to call Stafford Main Street, is located at 106 S. Main St.

Sonntag and his mother and business partner, Patricia Sonntag, plan to open in mid- to late summer.

"There isn't really a true [concert] venue in this town," said Sonntag, who currently bartends at Revolution Cafe & Bar. "What you have is a lot of places that are trying to compensate and pick up every market they can."

Sonntag said the Stafford will be a live music bar, without pool tables, juke boxes and other items found in many local nightclubs. While the venue will feature alternative rock and folk music, he said Stafford will let every kind of musician perform.

Willie Bennett, a concert promoter and former tenant in the building, will be responsible for bringing shows to the Stafford, Sonntag said.

"Right now, this town is hurting for a venue of this size," Bennett said. "This area does have Schotzi's, which outside can hold 700, but it's mainly Texas-music oriented."

Bennett booked talent for the 3rd Floor Cantina and Dixie Theatre, which he and partner Malynda Williams ran from 1995 to 1998. During that time, the Dixie attracted big names like Tripping Daisy, The Nixons and Little Texas.

The Dixie Theatre has changed hands many times over the years. Built by the Schulmans in the 1930s, it was the city's first vaudeville house. It burned in 1983 after a vagrant built a fire on the second floor, according to Eagle archives.

The late downtown developer Reid Monroe acquired the Dixie in 1991 and turned it into a nightclub, the Stafford Opera House.

After Bennett operated the Dixie Theatre, Caffé Capri owner Rami Cerone, Brian LeMaster and downtown Bryan developer Zane Anderson bought the building with plans to also create a live music venue.

However, the last group to operate the site was St. Luke's United Methodist Church, which called it The Venue -- an outreach center to provide a Christian gathering place for youth in the area. Representatives of the College Station church could not be reached to comment on the circumstances surrounding The Venue's closure.

Sonntag said he is enthusiastic about the Dixie's potential to draw commerce to downtown Bryan.

"Everyone can benefit from a place like this," Sonntag said. "We have a large string of high-quality restaurants in downtown Bryan, and we're developing a large string of bars. Eventually, it will be like Northgate, but more like a higher-class, cleaner Northgate."

• Holli L. Estridge's e-mail address is holli.estridge@theeagle.com.