OMAHA — Pausing his set, Nick Lowe looked around at Steelhouse Omaha, taking in the shiny new venue, then letting the 1,800 or so seated in front and above him know his thoughts about the place.
“You’re so lucky to have a place like this in your town,” Lowe said last month. “In London, where I’m from, it goes from the enormo-dome to a room above the Dog and Duck Pub. There’s nothing like this there. You really are lucky to have this.”
In fact, Steelhouse Omaha, which has a standing capacity of 3,000, was created to fill the kind of space Lowe noted doesn’t exist in London — a midsized venue that, in the case of Omaha, falls between clubs like The Waiting Room and Slowdown, and the 17,000-seat CHI Health Center Omaha.
“It was apparent that these bands that are touring across the country were skipping our city because there wasn't a sufficient-sized place for them to play,” said Omaha Performing Arts President Joan Squires. “CHI was too big, the Orpheum (2,600 seats) either too small or not the type of experience for the bands. So they're bypassing Omaha. We felt there was an opportunity to develop a venue that first of all would attract the touring bands to bring them here.”
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That attraction isn’t based solely on capacity. Steelhouse Omaha was designed and built to be an ideal building for midsized concerts. There are, for example, a pair of loading docks, allowing two trucks to be loaded and unloaded simultaneously.
The dressing rooms are well appointed, with showers, televisions and other amenities, and decorated with, to pick the most unusual example, a cutout of a tape deck in the shape of Nebraska.
The stage is a massive 80 feet wide by 40 feet deep, which will accommodate even the most extravagant production for concerts of Steelhouse size.
And hanging above the hall are arrays of D&B KS8 speakers, the most visible elements of the top-of-the-line audio system that’s permanently installed in the building.
“The idea was that when bands came in they could just plug in and play,” said Steelhouse general manager Craig Cope.
That kind of well-considered design also was incorporated into its public areas, from the LED lighting to the multiple bars that ring the inside of the hall and the large bar at the entrance, providing “price points” that eliminate long lines — or at the Nick Lowe/Elvis Costello show on June 21, any lines at all.
Even the entrance at Steelhouse is well thought out and state of the art with fast-moving lines, an unobtrusive security scanning system and plenty of well-positioned, helpful staff.
“I tell our people we’re not in the concert business,” Cope said. “We’re in the customer service business. We have to make this a great experience for people, not just open the doors for a show.”
Steelhouse Omaha was about six years in development, Squires said, and was designed to incorporate into the Omaha Performing Arts campus with the nearby Holland Center and to contribute to the economic development of downtown Omaha.
The $104.1 million project was privately funded and received $1.1 million from the city of Omaha. But because it had no single lead donor, but rather four “pillars,” Squires said, the building didn’t get a family name.
“It was a name we made up,” Squires said as Costello’s soundcheck geared up on the stage. "It’s a testament to the industrial nature of the site. Certainly there's steel underneath. It's actually clad in aluminum. But we wanted something that really was sort of cool and industrial and something people will be drawn to. And we also thought it was a name that would look good on T-shirts and hats.”
People have certainly been drawn to the new building at 1100 Dodge St. All of its early shows, starting with The Killers, have been sold out.
Dozens of Lincolnites were spotted going into Steelhouse to see Costello and Lowe. And dozens more have posted pictures from concerts by The Killers, The Flaming Lips and Fleet Foxes on social media after the shows.
That’s evidence that in its first two months of operation, Steelhouse Omaha has already become a venue for the region — not just Nebraska, but surrounding states.
“That’s what we expected,” Squires said. “When we did the analysis of these types of venues, we realized there wasn’t anything in the entire region similar to this. … So people are driving and this is becoming a destination very quickly.”
Steelhouse Omaha now has nine concerts, which are booked by industry giant Live Nation, set through the end of the year. But, Squires said, there will be many more, along with comedy shows and other events, booked into what is already one of Nebraska’s top venues in upcoming months.