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Brooklyn’s most Instagrammed dance floor might be headed for the wrecking ball—but not tomorrow. Avant Gardner, the parent company of the East Williamsburg complex that includes the Brooklyn Mirage, filed a demolition permit on October 10 seeking to take down about 32,000 square feet of structures at an estimated cost of $1.5 million. The filing was first spotted by The Real Deal and confirmed by Curbed.
There’s no calendar date for demo day just yet. A permit application isn’t an automatic green light; it still needs city approvals and any related proceedings to play out. Meanwhile, Avant Gardner is working through Chapter 11 after a messy spring that saw a splashy $30 million redesign stall out, a May reopening canceled hours before doors and then a bankruptcy filing in August listing more than $155 million owed to creditors.
The Department of Buildings laid out why the reboot never opened: The build failed to qualify as a “temporary structure,” faced questions on wind and seismic resilience and lacked required sprinklers. DOB commissioner Jimmy Oddo didn’t mince words about the redesign. “From 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,” Oddo said. (Yes, that’s verbatim.)
As for ownership, a sale could move in parallel. Law360 reports Avant Gardner is pursuing a deal to sell assets to an affiliate of its lender, with a court hearing planned later this month, another piece of the timeline that needs to land before excavators do.
Fans wondering if anything is still happening on the block: The Mirage has remained closed since spring, but Avant Gardner’s indoor venues, the Great Hall and Kings Hall, continued operating during the bankruptcy process. In announcing Chapter 11, newly installed executive Gary Richards said, “I believe this Chapter 11 restructuring is the most viable path forward—it will allow us to stabilize Avant Gardner and focus on building for the future.”
The bottom line: Demolition is likely but not yet scheduled. The city has an application to remove a big slice of the outdoor complex; the company is navigating bankruptcy, and a potential sale is queued for a court hearing. Until permits are approved and the deal is done, Brooklyn’s most famous open-air party remains in limbo—one more cliffhanger in a saga that’s already spanned redesigns, audits and a whole lot of canceled sets. For now, keep an eye on the DOB docket before you look for dust clouds.