ATLANTA, Georgia- Last week adultfyi.com related a story about a strip club that shares a building with a church. This week, a temporary church stands where infamous strippers of yore used to.
Beginning this month, The Christian Church of Buckhead plans to hold its first services in the former Gold Club. The church will lease the building until it’s torn down in spring to make way for an upscale condominium tower.
“We’re going to take something that was a mess and turn it into something good and usable,” said the Rev. Dan Garrett, senior minister of the church.
A group of developers paid $5.25 million for the property in December and will lease it to the church until building the condos on the 1.5-acre site.
The Gold Club was shut down after owner Steve Kaplan pleaded guilty in 2001 to racketeering charges and was sentenced to 16 months in prison.
Recently, the U.S. government had sold the 1.5 acre Gold Club property to Wayne Mason and Marty Kennedy of Gwinnett Partners LLC and developer Kim King for $5.25 million.
The developers eventually plan to build 300 condos at the site of Atlanta’s now-defunct notorious adult entertainment club. At the request of the federal government, the seller agreed the property will not be used for any form of adult entertainment business.
While a mixed-use project with retail is still a consideration on the table, developers have considered that a parking deck with multiple levels may be too inconvenient for shoppers, said Chris Hayes with Gwinnett Partners.
“Throwing out the retail and doing all condo simplifies it,” Hayes said.
After paying liens on the property of approximately $500,000, the U.S. government realized approximately $2 million after December’s sale. That amount will go into the United States Treasury Asset Forfeiture Funds, Departments of Justice and Treasury.
Former Gold Club owner and operator Kaplan and several co-defendants were indicted in 1999 on charges of using the Gold Club as a base of operation in violation of the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The indictment charged that the defendants committed a series of federal crimes related to the club, including money laundering, loan-sharking, interstate transportation in aid of racketeering-prostitution, acceptance of bribes by Atlanta police officers, obstruction of justice, credit card fraud and fraud against Delta airlines, some of these crimes in connection with organized crime.
On Aug. 2, 2001, during a trial, Kaplan, pled guilty to racketeering and to operating the Gold Club through a pattern of racketeering. On Jan. 8, 2002, Kaplan was sentenced to one year and four months in federal prison. In addition to prison time, Kaplan and the Gold Club were ordered to pay $5 million dollars to the federal government, restitution of $250,000 to a large group of credit card victims and $50,000 dollars to Delta Air Lines Inc., a victim of fraud from the Gold Club.
“The Gold Club saga finally is put to rest. All of us look forward to the day when the Gold Club facility is demolished and a responsible developer makes proactive and appropriate use of this valuable tract of land,” said U.S. Attorney Bill Duffey.