Cityfox Reopening The Brooklyn Mirage

The New York State Liquor Authority finally approved the Brooklyn-based promoters, Cityfox, a liquor license for their 6,000-person capacity venue. The license was granted even though Greenpoint and Williamsburg’s Community Board 1 unanimously voted against Cityfox’s application for a liquor license just this last week. The board’s recommendation was only advisory and taken into consideration when making the final decision. The agency greenlit the promoter’s plans to reopen the Bushwick venue at a hearing on Monday by approving a permit to run it as a permanent venue. “We are excited,” Simar Singh, Cityfox’s marketing director, told THUMP. “For the last many months, our team has worked hard to meet requirements and requests of all agencies and local officials while demonstrating our commitment to safety and the community. We’ll continue the same until doors open, and always afterwards.”

The entire complex is actually 80,000 square feet and is called “Avant Gardner” with a maximum capacity of 6,000 people. The Brooklyn Mirage is the outdoor section of the complex, and the full complex includes indoor, year-round facilities. The Avant Gardner will be one of the largest nightlife venues in the country. Cityfox’s plans for the space is to have music events that start at 2pm until 4:30am. The promoters also plan on having club nights, hosting community functions like performing arts and corporate events, fashion shows, film and photography shoots.

Cityfox has been trying for the last year to open the venue as a permanent space. City officials shut down the Brooklyn Mirage in June after a handful of parties in the early summer and discovering numerous safety violations. Since the closing of the venue, Cityfox has been lobbying local stakeholders to get support to reopen the venue. The Cityfox team has reportedly spent $60,000 on employing a lobbying firm to help their cause. Cityfox founder, Billy Bildstein, submitted 24 letters of support from local business owners, politicians, and community organizers at a presentation given to Community Board 1 in February. A letter from Beatrix Bang who is a global communications planning director at the media agency PHD worldwide and throws events for companies like HBO, Unilever, and Delta Airlines said, “There is currently an absence of venues that can accommodate the types of shows, events, exhibitions etc that are part of the marketing campaigns that we create and produce.”

According to DNAInfo, Bildstein apologized to the community board at the meeting: “We made mistakes and we didn’t do our homework right before we approached the board last year. I know we didn’t make a very good impression last year, and we’re here to show you the improvements.” The plans that he presented for the space included a “neighborhood beautification plan” and hiring 171 Brooklyn workers, which will generate $7.2 million in local income. “We look forward to providing hundreds of jobs, increased local economic activity, and a unique space to host a wide variety of events for Brooklyn,” Singh said. “We hope to become an indelible contribution to the thriving cultural landscape of New York City.”