New venues seek to add new vibe
Downtown Orlando is getting some new vibes.
Three new venues are set to expand the city’s music scene, including an overhaul for Venue 578, at the corner of Orange Avenue and Concord Street.
“The goal is to create a great new entertainment destination in Orlando,” said Mike Feinberg, one of three partners developing the block on the west side of Orange Avenue between Concord and Amelia Street. “We’re looking to bring a ton of diverse programming and great production value and a great fan experience.”
The centerpiece will be Vanguard, a concert venue that will open this summer, according to Feinberg. The brick building was home to storied club Firestone, which opened in 1993 and was a mainstay for local DJs who developed the internationally recognized “Orlando breaks,” a genre of electronic music that was prolific throughout the 1990s. It became Venue 578 in 2014, catering to electronic music and hip-hop.
The two-story structure built in
“This is my own personal desire to bring more great art and culture options to the city.”
Mike Feinberg, one of three partners developing music venues near Orange Avenue
1928 originally was an auto garage. It was designated a city landmark in 1987.
The other two venues, Odd Jobs and Blackstar, take over the location of Hoops near the downtown Lynx terminal on Amelia Street. A cocktail lounge, Odd Jobs will focus on upand-coming and experimental acts. Blackstar will host more established local, regional and national touring acts, as well as some club programming, according to Feinberg.
Blackstar is scheduled to have its first club night tonight. A concert featuring local and national bands was slated for Odd Jobs on Friday.
If their opening seems to be a surprise, that’s largely by design. “We’re just going to let programming and the creative do the talking,” said Orlando native Feinberg. “We’re not ones for a lot of outbound PR. So hopefully the press is gonna find us based on the merits of the project and we’ll get some great coverage out of it.”
Feinberg’s partners in the project are Tommy Mot, who previously owned Spacebar in Orlando’s Milk District, and Dan Larson.
Thomas Chatmon Jr., executive director of the Downtown Development Board, said the new spaces are in line with Orlando’s goals of “bringing more authentic social experiences downtown. When you go unique and authentic, a lot of that means going local.
“Trends across the nation are showing that more people are wanting this kind of entertainment,” he said. “Live music in general tends to broaden and deepen demographic customers coming into downtown. Music is very segmented. … So it’s good for us. It brings people downtown who might otherwise not come.”
Orlando artist Andrew Spear has painted a mural of David Bowie in Blackstar’s courtyard, referencing the late British rocker’s 2016 album of the same name.
Concerts are a major part of downtown Orlando’s nightlife, whether charttopping national acts at Amway Center and the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, or more offbeat local shows at smaller halls such as The Beacham, The Social and Ace Cafe. “There’s a lot of concert venues and that’s in part because the market supports that kind of volume,” said Feinberg, a co-founder of the Form music festival in Arizona.
The area known as North Quarter around Orange Avenue and Colonial Drive has recently added several apartment buildings, which Chatmon notes makes for ideal conditions for adding stages. “You connect those people with the central business district and there’s a lot more pedestrian traffic,” he said.
Feinberg, Larson and Mot also have designs to add programming to an outdoor lot between the three new venues. “Pop-up village with retail, drive-in movies and larger concerts,” said Feinberg.
“This is my own personal desire to bring more great art and culture options tothe city,” said Feinberg of the complete project. “I think they’ll be well received as the cultural landscape continues to grow. We see ourselves being hopefully an integral piece of that.”