Bath couple to reopen 'iconic' Spiral club in Lansing's Old Town as event venue

LANSING — Nearly four years after Spiral, a long-time LGBTQ+ club in Lansing's Old Town, shut down amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the property is being transformed into an event venue.

Bath couple Lynn Lucas and Matt Schultheiss, who own and operate W.E.D., an event business that handles everything from planning and coordination to decorating and D.J. services, have been looking for the right space to create a multi-purpose venue for a year.

The nearly 5,000-square-foot building at 1247 Center St., which hasn't hosted any other tenants since Spiral shut its doors in the spring of 2020, had what they were looking for.

When it reopens this spring as Copper Moon, the space will have "some of those industrial touches that are universally appreciated by people who are looking for an inner city wedding venue, but it will largely be a blank canvas to do what they want with," Lucas said.

Copper Moon will be an inclusive event venue with a bar, prop closet, and courtyard that's available for meetings, celebrations, weddings and other events, Lucas said.

Because Spiral "was very integral to a very important community," she said they hope to honor its legacy at the building.

"Our venue is going to be 100% inclusive," Lucas said. "We fully support the love is love philosophy. We still hope to serve that community "

Revitalizing Spiral

Spiral opened in 1998 and was a fixture in Old Town for more than two decades. It closed in March 2020 and never reopened despite the hopes of property owner Tom Donall.

Lucas and Schultheiss, who have 20 years of experience in event planning, looked at half a dozen potential properties in and around Lansing before they visited the former club.

"We were open to a variety of options," Lucas said. "Over the many years that we've been doing this, we've seen a lot of different styles. One thing that we knew we did not want was any sort of a barn so we investigated mostly industrial-type spaces and churches. We wanted something in a populated area that was close to several amenities that are critical for weddings and had climate control."

The former Spiral property offered them something beyond the opportunity to be a part of Old Town, she said.

"The building is so iconic and so treasured by so many people in Lansing," Lucas said. "The ability to honor that space and bring it back and have it actually serve the community again was pretty exciting for us."

The couple are in the process of buying the property and they plan to spend about $20,000 updating and renovating the space. That work started this month and Copper Moon could open in March.

Creating an events space

"There's not a whole lot of structural anything that we have to do," said Lucas, noting that most of the work planned for the property will be "cosmetic."

The couple is keeping the building's blue exterior color and adding a bar, D.J. booth, props closet and photo booth to the space, which will be able to accommodate upwards of 200 people. Venue rental will come with the use of mahogany chairs and white linens.

"Mostly the details that we're adding in are romantic and beautiful but very neutral and they tend to go with almost any style of wedding," Lucas said.

She and Schultheiss will utilize the property's courtyard, which has a gas fire pit.

"We're wrapping the trees in white light, making it beautiful, and creating what we're tentatively calling the fairy courtyard," Lucas said. "We want to be able to provide things to people that aren't necessarily found everywhere."

That includes accommodating clients who want their pets to be part of their indoor ceremony.

"After 20 years of being in the business and seeing things that would really help to make somebody's day special, we want to be able to do that," she said.

Contact Reporter Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on X @GrecoatLSJ .

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This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Bath couple to reopen 'iconic' Spiral club in Lansing's Old Town as event venue