Metropolis Nightclub
What: Nightclub open weekends at Cincinnati Mall
Where: 125 Cincinnati Mills Drive, Fairfield
Phone: (513) 671-2881
Owner: Mike Strait
Hours: 7 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays
Website: www.cincymetropolis.com
FAIRFIELD — Cincinnati Mall has managed to hold on to Metropolis Nightclub, whose owners have decided to sign a lease extension.
After Mike Strait, one of the owners of Metropolis, said Saturday the nightclub wold close because the two parties couldn’t come to terms over a lease agreement, he went back to the negotiating table Monday. The club’s 10-year lease expired Jan. 5 and a 30-day lease deal expired Saturday.
On Monday, Strait signed a month-to-month lease extension.
“After we saw the kind of support and surprise from a lot of customers that came out Saturday night, it kind of motivated us to maybe go back to the table one more time with the mall and with Karla,” Strait said.
Karla Ellsworth, general manager of Cincinnati Mall, declined to comment.
Strait said customers reacted to the news the club was closing with shock. People who had come to the club since it was previously called Bourbon Street more than a decade ago, couldn’t believe there would be no nightclub concept, he said.
There have been negotiations for a new lease agreement since last month.
“It’s not that business has slowed down to such a great deal we couldn’t afford to be here, we just weren’t willing to sign a long-term lease until we saw where this development went,” he said.
The newest owners of Cincinnati Mall, World Properties LLC of New York, unveiled plans Jan. 27 to Forest Park and Fairfield officials to turn the mall from a shopping center to more of an family entertainment facility. Cincinnati Mall straddles the Fairfield/Forest Park border.
Talks are under way to bring a Candlewood Suites Extended Stay Hotel, ice arena and amusement center, officials have said. Proposals also on the table are for an agricultural museum, an indoor mountain bike and water parks.
The mall has more than 1.5 million square feet, more than half of which is currently empty.
Since Strait and his partners bought Metropolis in 2005, the mall has been through five owners.
“They have a good plan, the most realistic plan so far,” Strait said. “We’ve heard five different stories now about the direction of the mall.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
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