Kevin Bronson on May 8th, 2015

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Los Angeles’ live music explosion is about to get another detonation point.

The Teragram Ballroom, located on the edge of downtown about three blocks west of 110 Freeway, is scheduled to debut Sunday, May 31, with a show featuring indie-rockers Spoon. [Tickets go on sale at noon today.]

The venture is the brainchild of New York City entrepreneur Michael Swier, one of the people behind the respected venues the Bowery Ballroom, Mercury Lounge and Music Hall of Williamsburg. Joe Baxley, owner of L.A.’s Broadway Bar, is also a partner in the new room, which is named in tribute to Swier’s late wife Margaret (“Teragram” is Margaret spelled backwards).

With a capacity of 600, the Teragram Ballroom will be slightly larger than the Roxy Theatre and Club Bahia (each about 500) and smaller than the Echoplex (650) and the El Rey Theatre (770). “What we’ve heard from agents is that there is a demand for a room this size in Los Angeles,” says Scott Simoneaux, the Teragram’s talent buyer who already has logged shows by the likes of Delta Spirit, Palma Violets, Nate Ruess (of fun.), Rodrigo Amarante, Allah-Las and Nick Waterhouse for later this summer.

The Teragram is located at 1234 W. 7th St., in the same block as the hip hangout the Monty Bar. There are several modestly sized parking lots nearby, and the venue is about four blocks away from the 7th Street/Metro Center Station.

Swier is promising a venue that offers top-notch sound, good sight lines and an intimate feel. And indeed, a visit to the Teragram this week suggested that the 9,000-square-foot space has a cozy feel. [Workers were still busy on the Teragram’s infrastructure, so the room was not ready for its close-up. But the photo above, shot from the mezzanine, gives a sense of the room and stage.]

The space had previous lives as a silent movie theater, a print shop and a rehearsal space. Under the direction of Swier’s architect brother Brian, a stage was built out at the south end of the room. The elegant, gently domed ceiling has been reinforced with acoustics-friendly padding. Upon entering the venue, visitors are greeted by a small foyer flanked by two bars that are sequestered from the main room. There’s another bar in the back of music hall.

“As with our New York venues, we have built the Teragram Ballroom for the bands as much as for the audience,” says Swier, noting the generous green rooms for artists. “The breadth of our experience has culminated in this incredible project.”

The venue will offer food service, Simoneaux said, but the extent of the menu has not yet been decided.

In a press release, Baxley notes that the Teragram represents a spillover from the resurgence of downtown L.A. “In the last decade, central downtown has been revitalized while the area of our new venue, only blocks away, is just beginning to see a resurgence,” he says. “I’m confident the Teragram Ballroom will be a positive cultural addition, one that will have an economic benefit to the immediate neighborhood. This venue and other local businesses like Lethal Amounts Gallery, the historic Mayfair Hotel (undergoing renovations now), and the Monty Bar are helping to extend the 7th Street corridor beyond the 110.”