Town nightclub sues landlord to terminate lease for church building
Town 2.0, the company that planned to reopen the popular D.C. LGBTQ nightclub Town in a former church on North Capitol Street, filed a lawsuit against the building’s owner on April 2, accusing the owner, Jemal’s Sanctuary LLC, of failing to upgrade the more than 100-year-old building more than four years after it signed a lease for the building.
Jemal’s Sanctuary is a subsidiary of the Douglas Development Corporation, one of the city’s largest real estate development firms.
The company purchased the building that was once Saint Phillips Baptist Church at 1001 North Capitol St., N.E., about a half mile north of the U.S.
Capitol, in 2017 after the church moved its congregation to Maryland. What was initially known as Town Danceboutique operated from 2007 to 2018 in a large, converted warehouse building on 8th Street, N.W.
