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Brooklyn Mirage, the East Williamsburg music venue known for drawing pashmina-wearing bros<\/a>, lots of MDMA, and a possible serial killer<\/a> to its giant EDM concerts, won\u2019t be demolished<\/a> after all. Instead, both the troubled club and its parent company, Avant Gardner, have a new owner<\/a>: FIVE Holdings, the Dubai-based holding company behind nightlife brand Pacha.<\/p>\n The Mirage, which first opened in 2015 on the site of a former lumberyard, grew into a massive open air club within the Avant Gardner complex, with huge LED screens, a 4,500-person dance floor, and more than 12,000 tropical plants. It was not only dogged by scandals like drug overdoses and deaths, but also complaints of overcrowding and poor crowd flow. After closing for a $30 million redesign which involved what the club\u2019s CEO described at the time as \u201cthe most sophisticated prefabricated wood structure ever built in the United States,\u201d it was supposed to reopen last May. But the city\u2019s Department of Buildings denied the club permits owing to its being, at least according to the agency, an unstable firetrap. \u201cFrom its questionable footing to the large truss at its zenith, from its cantilevered mezzanines to its exterior walls, it was potentially unsteady, combustible, illegal, and no place to put 6,000 people,\u201d DOB\u00a0commissioner<\/a> Jimmy Oddo wrote on X.<\/p>\n After a months of canceled shows and mounting debt, Avant Gardner replaced its CEO with Gary Richards, also known as DJ Destructo, who was overheard at Per Se<\/a> in July complaining about the challenges of finding a buyer for a company losing so much cash so quickly. It filed for bankruptcy in August, and applied for a demolition permit in October, in the hopes of reopening in some form in 2026. That month, the company also sold to<\/a> one of its lenders, Axar Capital Management for $110 million, who was then quickly sued by the other lenders over its alleged misrepresentation of Mirage\u2019s financial condition.<\/p>\n But the demolition application didn\u2019t pass DOB muster, either, and by the end of the year, the Mirage still hadn\u2019t been granted permission to be torn down or to reopen.<\/p>\n FIVE paid $110 million for Avant Gardner and the club, and may rebrand the Mirage as Pacha New York. It would be a revival of sorts; Pacha, originally an Ibiza club founded in the 1970s, had a venue in Hell\u2019s Kitchen from 2005 to 2016, and the brand was purchased by FIVE Holdings in 2023. For now, at least, it looks like the Mirage is likely to stay a nightlife venue. But \u2014 as a source told Brooklyn Magazine, which was the first to report the sale \u2014 a hedge-fund takeover of New York\u2019s electronic-music scene is not necessarily a cause for celebration. There are concerns, the source said, that the Dubai company will \u201csteamroll independent promoters in the city with inflated talent offers even while consumers are still owed refunds from Electric Zoo and canceled Mirage shows.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Curbed Newsletter<\/p>\n A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n