MARQUETTE – The Upfront & Company, which has been vacant for four years, has an offer written up, and the new owners are expected to close the sale by the end of the year.

Re/Max 1st real estate agent Dan Keller said the restaurant, bar and banquet hall is expected to reopen by next spring. He didn’t disclose the prospective owners’ names, but said a few of them are local.

The sale is for $4.6 million, which is up from the former price of $3.9 million.

“The building’s worth $8 million, so the price went up because the value’s there,” Keller said. “We had two people looking at it at the lower price, but this price includes inventory and liquor license and everything else, so it all falls in line.”

The 44,000-square-foot building closed in September 2012, for what at the time was claimed to be renovations. Staff then said all reservations would be honored, but the building promptly went up for sale.

Keller said the banquet hall, popular for wedding receptions, was booked for a year and a half out when it closed.

The building did suffer water damage a couple years ago, but that has all been repaired and replaced, he said.

The new owners have some design plans that are expected to take three to four months, with a grand reopening around the first week of May, Keller said – just in time for wedding season.

“With Duke (LifePoint) being here, everyone’s looking for commercial buildings now,” Keller said. “Town’s (going to) grow rapidly before everybody’s eyes now, commercially anyways.”

Mary Wardell can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248.