COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ nightclub Club Q announced plans Tuesday to reopen in a new location.
"We knew from the beginning that we can't just go away quietly," Michael Anderson said.
Anderson was tending bar the night of the mass shooting in November. The club has remained closed since then. Anderson is now the vice president of operations, and said the club will open a new venue at a new location in Colorado Springs.
"So the initial thought was, let’s reopen. We were going to renovate. We were going to remodel and just completely reset that entire club," Anderson said. "Since then, we’ve heard from survivors, some like myself who wanted to reopen in the original location, and then you have others who say 'I’m not comfortable going back into that location.'"
The new venue will be known as The Q by Club Q and will be located inside the Satellite Hotel at 411 Lakewood Circle in southern Colorado Springs.
"This space doesn’t have the same history or the same tragedy that that space did, so we’re here in a new space and we can create new memories with all new everything, and we don’t want people to be triggered going into a space that they should feel relaxed," Anderson said.
Anderson said the new venue will be managed and operated by survivors of the shooting. The club has invited former employees who wish to return the opportunity to join The Q.
"This is part of our healing and part of our moving forward is being able to bring this back to life," Anderson said.
Anderson said The Q will offer a complete reset with a new look, a stage for drag shows and possibly karaoke, and a revamped menu. But more importantly, Anderson said being inside an established hotel provides more protection than the original Club Q location, including more emergency exits and security protocols.
"During the shooting, I got trapped inside the building, and that was one of the worst feelings you could ever feel in your life," Anderson said. "They have crowd control, so there comes a point in time at night where you have to be buzzed into the building, so that provides a layer of security Club Q never had."
Anderson knows there are those who want Club Q to reopen in its original location where it was for 20 years. There are also residents of the Satellite Hotel who are fearful that the new LGBTQ+ club will draw unwanted attention and potential security risks, but Anderson believes The Q will bring back a space that is needed in the local community.
"Remember and honor the past while also looking to the future with positivity and community and unity," Anderson said. "This is history in the making for Satellite and for Club Q."
Anderson said there will be something in the new venue that will honor the victims and survivors, but the details have not been finalized. The old location will remain vacant inside, according to Anderson, but there will be some sort of permanent memorial constructed outside. He hopes The Q will be able to open by the end of the year.
"For me to be a part of this has been part of the healing, but it’s also part of me finding purpose beyond tragedy and triumphing over tragedy," Anderson said.
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