By Ashley Hockney

Another of the downtown buildings razed in June to make way for the CentrePointe high-rise project will relocate and add a music venue.

The pool hall Buster’s will re-open in the Old Tarr Distillery at 899 Manchester St. in mid-August, said developer Barry McNees, who has worked on the complex Buster’s will be part of, the Lexington Distillery District.

The new location will include a 1,000-person music venue, two bars and pool tables, McNees said. The proposed Lexington Distillery District will be an arts and entertainment district located along Manchester Street.

Developers are not sure when the Lexington Distillery District will be finished, but they hope the project will be completed by the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, McNees said.

“When Lexington is on the stage in 2010, we want to put on our good face,” McNees said. “People will be coming to the Horse Park, but we want to make sure when they come back downtown that there are interesting and authentic things to do.”

The Old Tarr Distillery is currently empty warehouses, a tow yard, parking lots and an abandoned residence.

McNees said the project, which will be part of the Bourbon Trail, should rekindle the production of bourbon and create a market for tourism that includes restaurants, art galleries, nightclubs and even the world’s first bourbon boutique hotel.

“The sole objective that we want to accomplish is to try to tell an authentic story,” McNees said. “In the end, the goal is to create a story that is distinctly our own and to do it with things that are authentic.”

For this reason, the development will be based on an adaptive reuse project that refurbishes the existing buildings instead of tearing them down and starting from scratch, McNees said.

It will take an estimated $190 million in private and public investments to complete the project. A majority of the money will come from a tax increment financing, or TIF, which allows a new development to use a margin of the state and local taxes for up to 30 years to pay for public infrastructures such as sewers, streets and sidewalks.

McNees said the project would try to create an atmosphere that has something for everyone.

“It’s not a project just about luxury, but has free components,” McNees said. “We’re trying to bring together the dynamic of Lexington into one spot.”