The screech of the spiral saw slicing through newly installed drywall drowns out any chance of conversation, but to Teddy Van Hove and Brandon Fick, it’s the sweet sound of progress.

Fick, 25, and Van Hove, 20, are the new co-owners of “The District,” an upscale bar located in the former “Charlie Yokes” building on Lincoln Way. The two bought the space on Oct. 2 and are in the process of giving the interior a complete face-lift.

While Charlie Yokes is now history, Fick and Van Hove can credit the old bar for putting the two investors together. Van Hove was a bartender when Fick left his job at Es Tas to become a manager at Charlie Yokes. The two are now almost inseparable.

“We’re pretty much always together,” Fick said.

The pair not only owns the bar, but Fick owns part of Van Hove’s first business, Blue Pine Lawn & Landscape.

If that wasn’t enough to keep Van Hove busy, he spent last weekend training at Camp Dodge in Johnston with the 194th Field Artillery Regiment of the Iowa National Guard and goes to school at DMACC. Private First-Class Van Hove is registered to attend Iowa State full-time next semester.

Van Hove said he knew he was too busy to run a bar by himself.

“I was like, ‘I can’t run a college bar by myself when I can’t even drink legally,’ so I started talking to Brandon a lot more and we kind of came together,” Van Hove said. “[We] figured out how much we would want to pay to actually buy the business and how much we were willing to pay for remodels.”

The owners said they plan to evenly split the day-to-day operations of both businesses and combine everything together into one business.

Fick and Van Hove said they saw a void in the types of bars Campustown had to offer.

“We’re trying to go for a little more of an upscale theme,” Fick said. “All the bars in [Campustown] were in major need of renovation, but no one has taken the time or the money to renovate. We wanted to raise the standard with the interior.”

The owners said they plan to have a unique drink menu to set The District apart from the competition.

“We’ll have a little bit of everything, but we do plan on having lots of specialty drinks,” Fick said. “Most of the bars around here just serve run-of-the-mill mixed drinks. We’re going to shoot for a special drinks menu. [Something] a little better or different from what you’d get most places.

Fick said it has been a challenge to get everything done. The original plan called for a Halloween opening, but the pair now plan to have a “soft opening” in two to three weeks. They plan to fully open for business when students return from Winter Break.

“I think keeping schedule has been tough,” Fick said. “You make a date in your head, you make a plan in your head, but it’s difficult. We’ve been finding it’s a lot more difficult to put those ideas in to action.”

Kim Hanna director of the Campustown Action Association, said it’s always tough when trying to open a new business.

“I think there’s always a little bit of a surprise when you’re opening a small business,” Hanna said.

Van Hove said they eventually plan to serve food and raise the outdoor patio to overlook Mickey’s, but for now the plan is to be just a bar and only open in the evenings.

“The kitchen is a couple of months out,” Fick said. The patio is not being used in the winter so it just doesn’t make sense.”

The District will employ about 20 people when it opens, Van Hove said.

Construction of new buildings in Campustown is currently booming, but Fick and Van Hove said owning a bar in “old Campustown” was part of the appeal and helped them decide on the bar’s name.

“We’re thinking about doing a scape of [the older] buildings as The District,” Fick said. “Kind of saying that this area that’s left is the old Campustown district as compared to the new stuff. We want to try to keep that old classic theme in the front.”

Hanna said thinks The District will add diversity to the Campustown community and she has “peeked” into the ongoing renovations and is excited to see the final project.

“There isn’t a night life location for everyone yet [in Campustown],” Hanna said. “We don’t really have a super high-scale night club right now. I think that’s something that is definitely lacking.”

Hanna said The District would be the 12th bar in Campustown when it opens. Van Hove and Fick said they know there is a lot of competition, but believe the bar’s uniqueness will set it apart.

“I just think people are going to want to come here because it’s a better-looking bar than most college bars,” Van Hove said. “We want more than just one type of crowd in here, we want everybody to want to come in.”