The site, on the corner of Midwest Avenue and Ash Street, is on the border of downtown and the Old Yellowstone District and across the street from Racca’s pizzeria. The 24,000-square-foot downstairs has been home to many businesses including housing a Plymouth auto dealership for many years.

Matt Galloway presented plans for Roaring 22 to City Council in July as part of the application for a new liquor license city had made available. The council granted the license to Old Yellowstone Garage.

Instead, Galloway and his partners — Pete Maxwell, Richie Bratton and Mark Galloway — are purchasing a retail liquor license from the Ramada Hotel. The hotel will then apply for a resort liquor license. Those come with restrictions but are not capped based on a city’s population like retail licenses are.

A public hearing on the license transfer will be held at the Nov. 15 Casper City Council meeting. Galloway said he’s optimistic that the license will be approved, though he said, “I take nothing for granted, and nothing surprises me.”

Galloway said specific plans for the bar will not entirely match those outlined in the July presentation.

“We’re kind of in total flux,” he said.

But Galloway said initial work can begin as soon as the license transfer is approved and that the bar should open by early summer, in time for the eclipse festival in August, when thousands of visitors are expected to descend on Casper.

“We’re no dummies,” he said. “We definitely want to be open by the eclipse.”

Galloway added that work should move relatively quickly because it will be a renovation rather than new construction.

The plan presented in July called for a bar and grill catering to young professionals, featuring an area with arcade-style games and a microbrewery that customers could use to brew their own beer.

“I can assure you we will have a bar and grill area. We will serve food, booze and beer,” Galloway said. The bar and grill is expected to take up 10,000 square feet.

In addition, Galloway said there will be three retail spaces — which he hopes will include a coffee shop, among other businesses — and four condo spaces on the second floor.

Galloway owns Keg and Cork with his brother and helps run Galloway’s Irish Pub, owned by his father. The family also owns El Mark-O Lanes bowling alley. He said that he enjoys talking to patrons at those establishments about what they think Casper needs and will try to incorporate that feedback into plans for Roaring 22.

Galloway said he thinks the development will help convert downtown Casper and the Old Yellowstone District into the kind of central districts found in towns like Fort Collins, Colorado, and Denver.

“We get where the scene is going in the larger cities and we hope to emulate that and bring that to Casper,” he said.

With Racca’s, Old Yellowstone Garage, Frosty’s, Karen and Jim’s, a new enterprise taking over the Wonder Bar location, The Lyric civic auditorium and David Street Station already in or coming to the area, Galloway imagines people being drawn downtown for events, dinner and bar hopping.

He remains slightly apprehensive, noting that while he expects the uptick in the number of businesses to be a good thing, there is also the risk that competition will have a negative impact.

“Is it going to work in a way that everyone benefits or where one cannibalizes another?” Galloway said.

But mostly he’s excited about the new project.

“We’re about to embark on something that the town has really never seen,” Galloway said of the cluster of new businesses in the area. “The whole city, as a totality, is taking it on — as a whole beast.”

The liquor license transfers for both Wonder Bar and Poor Boys Steakhouse, which the pair also purchased, were approved at Tuesday’s Casper City Council meeting.

Since the sale of the bar was announced in September, rumors about the fate of the bar have circulated on social media. The Wonder Bar opened in the 1930s and while it has changed ownership and even names over the years, it has remained a mainstay on Center Street.

“Us not being able to give our public plans caused anxiety,” Tony Cercy said. “When we’re able to give the plans, the anxiety will subside and the public will get behind us.”

Cercy said he and Cole would hold a press conference Friday at the Wonder Bar to reveal their full plans. But speaking to the Star-Tribune after Tuesday’s council meeting, Cercy confirmed that the Wonder Bar would reopen as a bar and restaurant and that the name would be preserved.

“We want to keep that heritage,” Cercy said. “We are going to use the name ‘Wonder Bar,’ but we are going to establish our own brand as well.”

Cercy added that he expected to preserve the wooden bar fixture, an item that Wonder Bar employees had circulated a petition asking the Cercys to preserve due to its historical notability.

“It’s undecided, but both my son and I looked at it, and I can say every effort will be made to keep it,” Cercy said.

He said that while a timeline would be revealed at the press conference on Friday, construction was expected to begin immediately.

The Cercys donated $1 million to the David Street Station project last week, and Tony Cercy said he sees the purchase and planned renovation of Wonder Bar as an exciting development for downtown Casper.

“We want, for both us and for the city, a place that Casper wants to gather, wants to come have a drink and get dinner,” Cercy said.

Several community members spoke in favor of the liquor license transfer Tuesday night, including businessman Pat Sweeney, who sold Wonder Bar and Poor Boys to the Cercys.

“The Cercys will be a marvelous fit for downtown,” Sweeney said. “I see them bringing some vibrancy to Center Street.”

Sweeney said some social media comments about the new owners were unfair and that it was important to remember that the Wonder Bar has not operated continuously since the 1930s. When he bought it about 15 years ago Sweeney said it was known as Tommy Knockers and had held several other names before that.

“There have been a lot of attacks… against the new ownership group: ‘How dare you think of changing anything dadadadada,” he said. “It’s got a storied past, but it’s time for a new chapter.”

Matt Galloway, whose family owns Galloway’s Irish Pub and Keg and Cork, also spoke in favor of the Cercys’ acquisition.

“Social media has been unfair to the Cercys,” Galloway said. “I want to offer our fullest support as fellow bar owners.”

“I think what they’re going to do is going to be fantastic,” he added. Galloway and several business partners are planning to open a new bar on the corner of Midwest and Ash Streets near the Wonder Bar location.

Cercy said he did not expect so many people to speak in favor of the liquor license transfer.

“I was very surprised and very happy,” Cercy said. “It feels really good.”