The building that once housed the Gallery Club — a strip club previously known as Hardbodies Ladies Club — is getting a new life on San Antonio's St. Mary's Strip. Nick Marquez, the entrepreneur behind Bar House and Old Main Ice House, is renovating the 1981-built commercial space at 2726 N. St. Mary's St. into an as-yet-unnamed concept, with an $850,000 budget and construction slated to wrap by August 2027.
According to CultureMap San Antonio, the project includes new restrooms, a masonry facade with a canopy, a small addition, and sprinkler systems required for high-capacity venues. A Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation filing for the project, tracked under TABS2026027575, lists Cibolo-based Above Ground Design, PLLC as the designer for the 5,863-square-foot renovation, with construction scheduled to run from October 1, 2026, through August 10, 2027. That same filing indicates PKM Ventures LLC, a Cibolo-registered entity managed by Marquez that serves as the primary real estate holder behind his bar and restaurant transformations, submitted the paperwork.
Marquez did not respond to requests for more information about the new concept, per the same CultureMap report, leaving the venue's name and format still unknown. The space, which sat as the Gallery Club for many years before that closure, sits near Tacos El Regio, a nearby food stand nicknamed “Stripper Tacos.”
A Growing Roster of Watering Holes
Marquez already owns three watering holes in the Schertz-Cibolo area — Old Main Ice House, Hidden Grove, and the original Bar House — along with a second Bar House location he opened in San Antonio proper. That downtown expansion, completed in November 2024, converted a 10,600-square-foot historic home built in 1910 at 820 N. Alamo St. into a three-story venue with a rooftop patio overlooking downtown, a project that required Historic and Design Review Commission approvals, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
His flagship, Old Main Ice House, launched in Cibolo in 2015 inside a 1920s building when Marquez was 28. The bar celebrated its 10-year anniversary in September 2025 following a full reopening in January 2024, after a fire had damaged the property in November 2023, according to Community Impact. The original Bar House concept, meanwhile, opened in Schertz in 2018 inside a restored 1930s home featuring reclaimed wood interiors and a large artificial-turf backyard, as MySA has reported.
Unlike those earlier projects, all of which involved adapting historical residential structures, the St. Mary's Strip building is a 1981-built commercial property — marking a notable departure in strategy for Marquez as he moves into one of San Antonio's most closely watched entertainment corridors.
A Corridor Still Finding Its Footing
The St. Mary's Strip has been rebuilding momentum since a multi-year city utility and road construction overhaul caused severe disruption to small businesses before an official grand reopening in April 2024, the Express-News reported. Unmapped utility lines were blamed for extended street closures during that project, prompting San Antonio District 1 Councilmember Sukh Kaur to propose a policy in June 2024 requiring advanced subsurface utility mapping ahead of future municipal construction, according to Texas Public Radio.
Even with construction in the rearview mirror, the corridor has seen churn among its tenants. Tobin Hill's 30-year-old Candlelight PourHouse closed in July, and new hospitality operators have since filed TABC permits for the space, as Hoodline reported. Other recent shifts along the strip include the closure of Cream II and the reopening of Burger Boy following a kitchen fire.
New Apartments and Rezoning Reshape Tobin Hill
The broader Tobin Hill neighborhood around the Strip is also in flux. San Antonio officials approved rezoning requests in late 2025 to enable commercial redevelopment along North St. Mary's Street, part of a push that includes roughly 2,500 new residential apartment units planned for the surrounding area, according to KSAT. City leaders have framed the growth as a way to expand daytime retail activity along a corridor long dominated by nighttime bars and clubs.
That growth has come alongside continued public safety attention on the strip. City and county officials in 2026 targeted public safety action plans for the corridor, including planned District 1 infrastructure upgrades such as flashing LED warning signs on residential side streets, Hoodline has reported. The efforts follow a string of incidents on and near the strip, including a fatal stabbing case that resulted in a 45-year prison sentence and a more recent gunpoint abduction case near N. St. Mary's Street.
For now, Marquez's plans for 2726 N. St. Mary's St. remain otherwise under wraps. No name, no concept details, and no opening date have been made public, and the state filing simply lists the project as a new St. Mary's location under his ownership.
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