New upscale restaurant, private bar with rooftop pool aims to be ‘trophy for Lexington’
A Lexington office building being turned into upscale condominiums is bringing a new restaurant and private dining club to downtown.
The Vine, 106 W. Vine St., is going into the former law offices building of Landrum & Shouse, purchased in October 2023 for $5.1 million. The development, directly across from Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse and the hotels at City Center, and near Ethereal Brewing, will be opening this spring.
“We hope it will be a trophy for Lexington,” said developer Jeremy Delk. “You will feel like you’re in New York.”
Delk has been renovating each floor, turning it into individual condos, with exterior balconies replacing the previous pushed-in versions. Altogether, there will be 21 condos, including the penthouse, he said.
Most are already sold; five two-bedroom, two-bath units are available as well as the three-bedroom, 3 1/2-bath penthouse on the 9th floor, which is listed for $2.95 million.
“This is the first commercial-to-residential conversion in downtown Lexington,” Delk said, and it comes with lots of perks, including the ability to list the condos as short-term rentals managed by The Vine.
Other perks will include a members-only club with access to the spa on the 8th floor and the rooftop The Vine Club, with its 14-by-42-foot pool, sports bar with an upscale casual menu that includes pizza, light bites and seafood tower.
The roof also will have an event space with room for 100 guests seated or 200 standing.
Delk said the restaurant, which will share the 9th floor with the penthouse, will be called The V. It will be about 6,000 square feet, with about 160 seats indoors and private dining space available.
Delk is adding an 8-foot balcony on two sides, which will create more than 40 outdoor dining spots as well.
“No place else will have a view like this, sitting outside overlooking downtown Lexington, eight floors up,” he said.
The white-tablecloth restaurant is expected to open in June with a fine-dining menu that will be seafood-forward with high-end steaks. His wife, Maggie Delk, and her business partner Jacqueline Merriweather will be the proprietors of the restaurant and the spa.
“This will be not like anything we’ve seen in Lexington,” he said. “It will have great food, great service, great ambiance and experiential dining, with a lot of tableside features.”
Delk said the rooftop Vine Club — think Lexington’s version of New York’s Soho House — is expected to open this summer. There’s already a wait list for memberships, he said.
The spa includes a champagne bar and hot tub with doors that open onto a balcony.
The quick sales and the waiting list already for the club, he said, “speaks to the demand in Lexington. People want to be downtown, where there are restaurants, bars, entertainment.”
He said the impetus for the project came from places they’ve visited around the world.
“We invest in a lot of places and like to travel … but we love Lexington and wanted to have something here that makes you feel like you’re in the South of France or St Barts and is over the top,” Delk said. “We thought, ‘why can’t we invest here?’ With COVID, there’s been a lot of repurposing of real estate … this was an under-performing commercial asset and it’s a prime location.”
