It’s got get-up and go-go

TO make it in the increasingly crowded L.A. nightlife scene, a new club must have something more. For downtown’s newest hot spot, Club 740, the hook is Club 740 itself.

With its finely detailed brass railings that run the length of the second- and third-floor balconies, plush red walls, glass walls encasing the upstairs VIP lounges, ornate high ceilings, labyrinthian staircases and gargantuan dance floor, the club conjures images of 1920s-era vaudevillian theater. The space offers a beauty, elegance and character sorely lacking in most modern super-clubs.

Such old-world splendor contrasts starkly with the club’s modern touches: four plasma TVs built into the rear walls, four large video monitors atop the front of the dance floor, four raised stages where eight go-go dancers gyrate throughout the night, the Kryogenics fog machine that occasionally covers the dancers in haze and the laser-light spectaculars.

“I’m really into historical stuff, I love architecture, and the second they opened the door I saw the structure and beauty of [the building],” says Ralph Verdugo, the club’s chief executive who bought the building about 20 months ago and opened 740 six months later.

“I was really blown away when I first walked into the club after seeing the remodel. It’s a little bit more upscale than what I was expecting,” says Chang Weisberg, whose Guerilla Union (the company behind the Rock the Bells festival) produced Interscope Records’ post-BET Awards party at 740 earlier this year. “It’s a little gem for where it’s located. They’ve done an amazing job there, putting the money into the right areas, the sound system, the lighting.”

On a recent Saturday, there’s no sign the juxtaposition of old and new is off-putting in any way, at least not among the large crowd. A capacity crowd of 1,000 or so partyers, most in their 20s and early 30s, turns the dance floor into a steamy sauna, dancing to the standard mix of top 40 and hip-hop, with a surprising dose of techno. Upstairs, couples on the romantic tip enjoy VIP service as they survey the scene below. Outside, in an alleyway that connects the club’s parking lot to the entrance, more wait to get in.

And from his private balcony, Verdugo, 35, dressed in a white button-down shirt and faded jeans, proudly oversees his terrain.

Verdugo, a Los Angeles native, started his career in environmental construction and moved into residential investing before falling in love with nightlife at the age of 25 and opening his first venture, Club Ibiza. When he visited the dilapidated Globe Theater, a movie house that dates to 1912, he saw great potential.

“The guy was 45 minutes late and he was like, ‘Are you sure you want to see this?’ ” Verdugo says. “We got in here and it was a dump, with rats as big as possums.” During the initial cleanup, crews hauled away 15 dumpsters of trash, Verdugo says, while it took four weeks to polish and restore the brass railings to their original luster and shine.

“We literally took a 360-degree turn to bring it back to its original condition, original paint, original beauty, and we came pretty close,” says Verdugo, who plans to offer live music on Monday and Tuesday nights in a 300-capacity basement room he’ll call Heaven40. And while his friends and investors tried to talk him out of opening downtown, Verdugo believes in the area’s resurgence. “In the next few years, downtown is going to be like Manhattan, a city full of life, full of people,” he says. “Downtown is growing out of control, and [with] the direction the city is taking downtown we fit right into that.”

With the development of the AEG Live complex across from Staples Center, many are betting on an even greater renaissance.

Despite being outside Hollywood, the club has started to make inroads with the celebrity crowd, attracting the Black Eyed Peas, who retreated to 740 on New Year’s Eve after their Giant Village show was canceled, as well as David Banner, Sean Paul, Usher, Chris Brown, Ice Cube and Kelis, the R&B; singer who will host her birthday party there on Saturday.

Weisberg acknowledges it’s a challenge getting celebrities outside Hollywood, but he says the buzz on 740 is spreading: “Anytime there’s a new and exciting venue out there, word travels pretty quick.”

Steve Baltin may be reached at weekend@latimes.com.

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Club 740

Where: 740 S. Broadway (the entrance is in an alley behind the building)

When: Thursday through Saturday nights; hours vary

Cover: $20; bottle service starts at $150

Info: (213) 627-6277; www.740la.com