Although the outcome remains uncertain, Rich Lupo has found two locations that might make a suitable new home for his Heartbreak Hotel. As first reported in the Phoenix (see "Lupo considers move out of Downcity," This just in, January 4), the club owner became more amendable to other possibilities, although he would prefer to keep Lupo's in downtown Providence, because of a sense that the local establishment is arrayed against him.

The two potential locations are, respectively, one and two miles from Lupo's current Westminster Street location, one in the Allens Avenue area and the other in South Providence. While Lupo believes the sites could make for a successful club, a few hurdles remain in the way: neighborhood support for the concept, acquisition of a site, and resolving a running conflict, probably with a buyout, between Lupo and Peerless-Keen Associates, his present landlords at the Peerless Building. "Everything's got to work out for this to happen," Lupo says.

In related news, property owner Arnold "Buff" Chace, one of the principals in Peerless-Keen Associates, has withdrawn from a previous plan to partner with Lupo on the real estate aspect of a new location. "We think it would just be cleaner for everyone for Rich to find a new place," says Cliff Wood, Downcity coordinator for Cornish Associates. "He can run his club as he runs his club."

Cornish is hoping that Lupo's can be relocated quickly since the first tenants in the company's renovated Alice Building, which is across the street from the club and was the subject of a well-attended January 24 open house, are due to arrive in February. "Their ideal world has me out in the summer," Lupo says, and he might be able to open a new location - "I think it will be difficult, but doable" -- by early September. Wood says Cornish hopes to open the nearby Lerner and O'Gorman buildings to tenants later this year, and to move quickly in developing the Peerless, the largest downtown property being targeted for new residential use.

Meanwhile, a dispute between Chace and Lupo's over the club owner's tenancy in the Peerless Building is scheduled to be aired in Superior Court on February 5.

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.

Issue Date: February 1 - 7, 2002