Miami’s 16-year-old legendary club, Club Space, is now under new ownership, and will be undergoing some major changes. The new owners are III Points’ David Sinopoli, Link’s Davide Denese, and Miami Rebels’ Coloma Kaboomsky, and they have exciting ideas for Miami’s staple club.
“I think the great thing about this club is that it gives us a lot of room for creativity,” Kaboomsky said to Miami New Times. “Space — in the past — has been related to outer space, mostly, and this is something David brought up, but Space is also room. It’s also creativity. It’s also dimensions, endless possibilities. I think we’re going to redefine what Space really means with how excited and motivated we are.”
The club was recently bought out from Miami nightlife veterans Justine Levine and Roman Jones. Space’s new owners are veterans of Miami’s nightlife as well. Sinopoli is the cofounder of Miami’s III Points Music Festival, and has also spent the past seven years booking live acts in hip-hop, rock, and indie dance genres at Bardot. Link and Miami Rebels have been responsible for years of successful parties in Miami’s underground techno and house scene at clubs like Trade, Story, and Treehouse. The three partners began to work more closely together in the past 12 months. Link and Miami Rebels hosted a stage at this year’s III Points where the three had bonded. After III Points and Space went up for sale due to lack of leadership as well as competition from clubs like Heart and E11even, the trio decided to pounce on the opportunity of becoming partners.
“We just enjoyed working with each other,” Kaboomsky says. “It’s good to have the ability to disagree with someone and still reach an agreement through civil, rational conversations.” “We have a hunger, an energy, and a stamina that I don’t think any other ownership group that’s coming into this place would ever have,” Sinopoli says. “We are on the cutting edge and in the trenches of a lot of what needs to be done here, so the heavy lifting, the long hours, the investment of our energy is a lot of it right now. We have a lot of ideas for what Miami needs as far as voids. We want Space not to just be the after-hours spot. We want Space to come in and plug some holes that have been lost in the development of Miami.”
Sinopoli has spoken with many live acts who are interested in taking their tours to Miami for the first time if they had a venue to host them. The Space Invaders, as the new owners jokingly refer to themselves, are planning on re-envisioning and redesigning the club’s downstairs into a 600 capacity music venue where it will host touring bands and live electronic music acts.
Libertine, a 200 capacity cocktail bar, came with the purchase of Space. The Invaders plan on varied events in this space (pun intended) from book signings to afterparties. Other potential parts of the club are the dark-room area and the popular Terrace. The spaces along with a 24-hour liquor license creates a wide variety of opportunities of events all week long for the club. The new Space is expected to host unique events like yoga and meditation on the Terrace during the day where it will be redecorated with crystal motifs and plants. The Invaders see the Terrace transforming into a series of events that will draw in one crowd at 2am, another at 9am, and then another at 2pm on Sunday afternoons.
“We need to get people from Miami to understand again that Space can be a place that is laid-back,” Denese says. “Take away all the intensity of the afterhours — you can come and get good drinks at the bar and good service from somebody who is relaxed. We want to bring good security and good management. It’s what we’ve been doing in separate venues over the years — just blow it up to this dimension.”
The new owners held their first Space event on Saturday, December 3rd during Art Basel. Big plans are set for a party with Jamie Jones on New Year’s Eve and Miami Music Week/Winter Music Conference parties are being planned for each night of the week. “The first thing we did after signing the lease was to call a couple agents that are good friends to tell them what happened, and bookings haven’t been a problem,” Denese says. “Everyone is extremely excited about working together in this.”
The new owners plan to look to others for more collaborative opportunities so that Space becomes a home for everyone in the city. “This is a big deal for us personally. It’s a big deal for our companies, and it’s great that we’re coming together, but that’s not the biggest deal,” Kaboomsky says. “The biggest deal is that it’s for Miami. We are all people who consider Miami almost our country. We think it’s a really good thing for Miami, and not just the connections in the U.S. but also worldwide. We’re going to see a lot more people coming here to come to Space, and we’re looking forward to that.”
