When you step into the newly remodeled Waiting Room at 6212 Maple St., the first thing you'll notice is the sheer openness of the room.
 
What once was a '70s-style low-ceilinged lounge that led into a broad (though smaller) open area with a stage is now one large, open area from the moment you step through the entranceway. The ceiling tiles have been removed, exposing rafters and gleaming silver ductwork. Incidental barrier walls are gone. Two rooms have become one. And it feels huge.
 
"It's more open than we thought it was going to be," said a proud, smiling Marc Leibowitz, who operates the Waiting Room with partner Jim Johnson, who was busy pulling wire atop a rolling scaffold.
 
The renovation project began literally moments after the bar closed Jan. 2. "We started boxing up liquor and glassware that night, and moved the coolers," Leibowitz said. The next morning, people began arriving with saws. Throughout the demolition, a team of about 15 employees and friends filled nine dumpsters with the Waiting Room's former interior, uncovering pieces of its history.
 
Among the discovered artifacts was a box of canceled checks from The Cornhusker Bar, one of the building's former identities. Leibowitz kept a couple of the checks, made out to Hamms and Storz breweries, dated 1964. The checks were found in a tiny office hidden in the ceiling above the bar. 
 
Crews also found three or four layers of old electrical wiring as they gutted to the wood flats of the roof. In the end, there were no surprises. "Overall, it went fast and we took care of any problems as they arose," Leibowitz said, adding that a lot of the less-visible work had been completed prior to Jan. 2, including upgrading the building's heating and cooling system and replacing the roof.
 
"This project is basically finishing up the club," he said. "These are things we wanted to do when we opened in '07, but it wasn't feasible and we hadn't explored the place enough. The old Waiting Room was great for us, but it was still two very separate rooms with distinct sounds in those rooms, and it didn't live up to the potential we saw."

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