Williamsburg’s Domino Sugar Complex Will Get a New Concert Venue

Williamsburg’s Domino Sugar Complex Will Get a New Concert Venue By , an Emmy Award–winning Curbed writer who has reported on New York City for four years A rendering of Domino, a new venue opening in Williamsburg. Photo: Courtesy of Domino The former Domino Sugar Refinery on the Williamsburg waterfront will soon offer the neighborhood a new amenity: a music venue. The room, a project announced today and set to open in April, can fit 750 people, and it will be operated by TVG Hospitality, a group led by a member of Mumford & Sons that manages other venues in Los Angeles (Mitsi) and Alabama (the Orion, the Saturn). The old factory building, adapted into office space, is now known as the Refinery, and this new space, next to the building’s new Equinox gym with an entrance on the river side, will be called Domino. The location is, if you’re of a certain age, interesting. Old-timers may remember nights nearby at Glasslands, 285 Kent, and Death by Audio — all within one block, and all closed by 2015. The generation of glossier spaces that followed those has also gone dark: The local Knitting Factory shut in 2022, and the Music Hall of Williamsburg will close this December. So it’s unclear how a noncorporate venue can survive here, as my colleague Michael Calderone reported. One broker told him that “live music does not work at 400 bucks a foot.” With fewer competitors, Domino may have an easier time scraping together audiences. It also has a very different landlord. Two Trees, David and Jed Walentas’s family business, has long made its commercial buildings more appealing to paying tenants by handing space to the arts and subsidizing studios for artists. Kara Walker’s monumental sculpture took over the Refinery a decade before any tech bro rented an office there. An AI rendering of the space shows a standing-room ticketed area by the stage with tiered seating behind. Photo: Courtesy of Domino Two Trees won’t be meddling in programming directly, per the press release. The announcement, which uses the word “independent” seven times, explains that events will be reviewed by a “cultural board … of New Yorkers from diverse industries and backgrounds.” Programming, it says, will extend to “concerts, club nights, comedy, film screenings, live podcast tapings, fashion and art events,” and the space will also be rentable for weddings and such. Don’t expect old-school punk shows. “Volume in the performance space,” it adds, “will not exceed 100 dB.” Another AI rendering shows exposed I-beams that fit the Refinery’s industrial aesthetic. Photo: Courtesy of Domino Williamsburg’s Domino Sugar Complex Will Get a Concert Venue Your product is saved! You’ll receive emails when your saved products go on sale. Manage preferences.