(Image: Neighbours)

Image from the 2019 real estate listing for the property at 1509 Broadway

Capitol Hill gay dance club legend Neighbours has a buyer. And TJ Bruce seems like the kind of man who will love the revered but dog-eared disco — or, at least, restore it back to a thriving Broadway business.

CHS has confirmed Bruce, an investor and backer of gay clubs stretching from Fresno to San Jose to San Francisco to Portland and, now, Seattle, is closing on a deal for the club and the 1911-built, 14,000-square-foot Broadway building it has called home for 40 years. CHS reported on the property hitting the market for $6.9. million in January 2019. We don’t know yet terms of Bruce’s deal for the club and valuable Broadway property. It was relisted in late 2020 for $5.75 million.

The prospective buyer has been a prolific investor in West Coast gay nightlife with recent acquisitions and openings including an expansion of his Splash family of video dance clubs in Fresno, and an expansion of the Badlands clubs he is part of with a new location in the works in Portland.

Bruce will also be part of the reopening of San Francisco’s Castro District after years of closures and restrictions where he has acquired has been a consultant for the original Badlands that “permanently” closed in 2020. He is based in Sacramento where he has grown his gay bar empire from K Street’s The Depot.

UPDATE: Bruce doesn’t own the SF Badlands but has provided consultant services to the club for more than 20 years. He owns the Badlands in Sacramento along with The Depot plus Splash clubs in in San Jose, Fresno, Modesto and Reno.

When the Seattle deal closes, Bruce’s new dance club will remain Neighbours — for now. The investor said he has “mixed feelings” about keeping the old name in the long run but is still getting to know the neighborhood including sorting out how his new club will be a good neighbor to the under construction Pride Place LGBTQ-affirming senior housing project next door.

Losing “Neighbours” would, of course, add to a sense of loss in Capitol Hill’s LGBTQ+ nightlife communities from the pandemic after two challenging years of business, postponed Prides, and the closure of R Place after it lost its lease. The building is now lined up as a new headquarters for a neighborhood tech company and a new restaurant project.

Meanwhile, the community of gay dance bars around Neighbours has shifted. Nearby, Q, which opened as a glossy queer-focused club in 2012, has transitioned to a more mainstream electronic dance music venue. And a small empire of LGBTQ+ bars and clubs has formed around The Cuff-Queer/Bar-Grim’s-The Woods family. Meanwhile in the Capitol Hill dance scene beyond the gay bars, the Rhino Room has continued since 2014 at 11th and Pine, and the Baltic Room became Mint Lounge at the base of Pike/Pine.

A new start for the old Neighbours might not be the worst idea.

In late 2020, CHS reported about the neglected club’s dilapidated condition after pandemic closure left it vulnerable to break-ins and squatters. The city later slapped the building with code violations for allowing the decay to continue. Performer Roxy Doll led the effort to raise funds to clean up and reopen the venue as the club’s longtime owner Moustafa “Moe” Elassiouti remained in Egypt due to COVID-19.

(Image: Neighbours)

The club also overcame a terrible arson that shook the neighborhood’s nightlife community. More than 700 people were partying to ring in 2014 when an arsonist set the iconic gay dance club on fire. No one was seriously injured thanks to fast acting staff and patrons who were able to douse the flames before they spread to the packed dance floor. Musab Masmari admitted to setting the fire inside the crowded club, blaming his actions on drinking too much alcohol. Police and FBI arrested Masmari following a month-long investigation into the New Year’s Eve arson. Under a plea deal, the defendant did not face hate crime charges — though, according to the prosecution, a “confidential informant” told investigators that Masmari said homosexuals should be “exterminated.” In July of 2014, Judge Ricardo S. Martinez handed down a 10-year sentence in the case — twice the amount of time prosecutors and Masmari’s lawyers were asking for under the plea agreement.

Under the Elassiouti family, local managers and promoters have kept Neighbours open and the dance floor busy. According to county records and state corporation records, Elassiouti remains head of the trust that has owned the property since 2013, acquiring it from the Regalia family for $2.5 million. The structure includes a “246 month” lease for the club through December 2033 but Bruce’s sale agreement would make that a moot point. He will own the whole kit and caboodle.

Once the deal currently in escrow closes, a major overhaul to the two level club and bar that started planning under the previous ownership will continue — but under Bruce’s vision of the new Neighbours as a video dance bar with greater appeal. His business model has been to acquire an existing venue and invest deeply in renovation with a philosophy of “extensive” remodel “over whatever time it takes.”

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