Cleveland’s new Globe Iron music venue debuts Friday in historic Flats building – Cleveland.com

Globe Iron is a new concert and entertainment venue opening May 3, 2025, in the old Globe Iron Works building at 2325 Elm St. on the West Bank of Cleveland’s Flats. A partnership between concert and events promoter AEG Presents and Cleveland-based Jacobs Entertainment, the 1,200 capacity venue will host a blend of local and national acts, booked by AEG, which also books Jacobs Pavilion and the Agora in Cleveland. (Image is courtesy of LDA Architecture.)LDA Architecture
CLEVELAND, Ohio – On Friday night, the Cleveland live music scene will get its first new major concert venue in years as entertainment promotion giant AEG Presents opens the 1,200-person capacity Globe Iron on the West Bank of the Flats.
The inaugural show will feature local duo How We Feel (singer-guitarist Chris Bianchi and drummer Brian Lamtman) celebrating their debut album, “Ready for War” with openers A Sense of Purpose, Ghostatic and Erasing Never. Tickets are $25 and are available at axs.com.
Globe Iron, run by AEG in partnership with Jacobs Entertainment, Inc., is located at 2325 Elm St. east of the Nautica Entertainment Complex in an historic building that was once home to the Globe Iron Works Foundry back in the 19th century.
Longtime local club-goers may also recall that the spot was also home to a series of popular dance clubs beginning in the 1990s, most notably Metropolis.
Related Reading: Rehab plan for Globe Iron Works complex in the Flats begins with razing of 2 buildings
In its first few months, Globe Iron will play host to a variety of local, national and international acts, including Cleveland metal legends Mushroomhead (May 3), original U.K. punks The Damned (May 5), Grammy-winning instrumentalists TheBadBadNotGood, award-winning country-soul couple The War & Treaty (June 21), and House of BurlesCLE shows (June 7).
The venue also hopes to become a local hub for touring hip-hop and EDM artists and electronic music to tap into the strong local dance culture, whose fans often take road trips to see their favorites in other cities. DJ, comedian, rapper Zack Fox performs there Friday, May 23.
And Globe Iron is also aiming to become the regional home for Absolute Intense Wrestling, with an initial event booked for May 16.
Globe Iron is a new concert and entertainment venue opening May 3, 2025, in the old Globe Iron Works building at 2325 Elm St. on the West Bank of Cleveland’s Flats. A partnership between concert and events promoter AEG Presents and Cleveland-based Jacobs Entertainment, the 1,200 capacity venue will host a blend of local and national acts, booked by AEG, which also books Jacobs Pavilion and the Agora in Cleveland. (Image is courtesy of LDA Architecture.)LDA Architecture
Building on a colorful history
The Globe Iron building has a rich history in Cleveland, both as a 19th Century manufacturing facility and, in the late 20th Century, as the home of one of the city’s best-known nightclubs.
It began its life as Globe Iron Works, an iron foundry launched in 1853 by Samuel Lord and William McClelland. The building changed hands several times before majority interest was purchased by Henry Coffinberry and partners Robert Wallace and John Pankhurst in 1869. That company produced engines, boilers and other iron products and experienced steady growth until 1876, when it purchased interest in a dry dock with a mind on expanding into the shipbuilding business.
The business then became Globe Ship Building Company. Six short years later, the group launched the prototype for iron and steel-hulled freighters that would go on to traverse the Great Lakes.
Globe Iron merged with several other companies in 1899 to form American Ship Building Co. This new company eventually became the largest shipbuilder on the Great Lakes. The building continued to make steel casting productions and was part of American’s shipmaking operations into the mid 1900s. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
A scene from Metropolis in its heyday.(Chuck Crow/The Plain Dealer)The Plain Dealer
Rebirth as a nightclub
Most Clevelanders remember the building as the home of Metropolis, an epicenter for many into-the-morning dance club adventures beginning in the 1990s.
There were many such clubs in Cleveland at the time – Spy Bar, U4IA/Europa, Wish, Nine of Clubs, Brillo Pad, Aquilon – but only Metropolis lived up to its larger-than-life name. It was nothing short of a ’90s Midwest dance mecca.
In fact, buses from all over brought people to it like moths to flame.
Locals loved it, too. The spacious nightclub featured a main room with a large dance floor and stage. A balcony and a second room, dance runway over the main bar and a multi-level VIP room rounded out the complex.
Often, the joint was packed – considered the place to be on weekends. It didn’t bow to trends; rather, it was a “tastemaker” location curated and cared for by its most fervent devotees.
The Globe Iron team hopes to capture some of that lightning in a bottle again.
After all, in its former life, the building hosted shows by hip-hop stars 2Pac, Gucci Mane, Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne and Rick Ross; R&B-pop singer Tara Kemp (“Hold You Tight,” “Piece of My Heart”); techno purveyors Deadmau5 and L.A. Style (“James Brown is Dead”). The building already understands hot.
The club operated under other names in the early 2000s, and eventually became Dream Nightclub. Cleveland officials forced that club’s closure in 2011 with a temporary restraining order, due to a “loud music, fights, shootings, overcrowding, operating as an after-hours club” as well as underage liquor sales and other illegal activity.
The club was subsequently deemed a nuisance to the neighboring community and later closed for good, due to a perfect storm of back rent, lease issues and legal challenges.
AEG and Jacobs Entertainment, which owns many buildings in the Flats, saw potential in the building and formed a partnership to bring it back to life in 2023. After a massive renovation-revitalization project, concerts at the storied spot are back – just in time for summer.
Coming back to life
“We all kind of jumped for joy when we found out that this building still was existing,” said Globe Iron talent buyer James Carol.
“Because when we had the history of it all… it’s very rare now to find a spot that has a backstory to it and [can] actually resurrect that backstory.”
The refurbished venue’s decor recalls its industrial roots and sports two large cashless bars; one near the main entrance and another in the concert room.
Folks on the floors can enjoy events with state-of-the-art sound and lighting. There’s also ADA access and the stage is elevated enough to ensure there are good sight lines from anywhere on the floor.
In addition, a VIP deck, allowing those who want to spend a little more digital cash, offers a wider view of the stage. Outside the main entrance is a cozy courtyard, which the Globe Iron team hopes will attract wedding, graduation parties and corporate events when scheduling permits.
A new player in the concert business
AEG renovated and has operated the Agora Theatre, with its 2,000-seat capacity theatre and 500-seat capacity ballroom, since 2017.
In 2021, they entered into a 10-year agreement to run Jacobs Pavilion in the Flats, which holds up to 4,900 concertgoers. AEG is also booking shows at Rocket Arena, home of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
That puts them in direct competition locally with the other concert promotion giant in town, Live Nation.
In addition to also booking national shows at Rocket Arena, Live Nation has exclusive booking agreements at Blossom Music Center (with 20,000-plus seats), the MGM Northfield Park (1,800 seats) and the House of Blues (with 1,300 capacity in its main room and 300 in its smaller Cambridge Room space). Live Nation also books shows at the Akron Civic Theatre (2,600 seats) and Goodyear Theater (1,458 seats).
Globe Iron is a new concert and entertainment venue opening May 3, 2025, in the old Globe Iron Works building at 2325 Elm St. on the West Bank of Cleveland’s Flats. A partnership between concert and events promoter AEG Presents and Cleveland-based Jacobs Entertainment, the 1,200 capacity venue will host a blend of local and national acts, booked by AEG, which also books Jacobs Pavilion and the Agora in Cleveland. (Image is courtesy of LDA Architecture.)LDA Architecture
Globe Iron’s 1,200 standing-room-only space will compete most directly for national shows with Live Nation’s House of Blues. But it might also vie for national gigs that now might go to slightly smaller clubs like the 500-capacity Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland’s Waterloo Entertainment District, the 800-capacity Roxy at Mahall’s in Lakewood or the new 600-capacity Treelawn, located near the Beachland on Waterloo.
(The independent TempleLive at the Cleveland Masonic has 2000+ seats and is similar in size to AEG’s Agora.)
Globe Iron’s Carol, who has more than a decade of booking shows in the area under his belt with the Beachland Ballroom, said the new venue should fill a gap in the local concert market for fans and for artists.
“I look at this place as something that’s kind of been lacking for a while,” Carol said. “Basically, there was always this wall where you hit a certain size, and you couldn’t go any bigger there, so you had to go to another room.
Carol noted that laying waste to presumed competitors — big or small — in the Cleveland club and live music scene is not AEG’s goal.
Rather, he maintains relationships with the owners of the beloved smaller venues (including his former employer the Beachland) and the Grog Shop, knowing a rising tide can float all boats. The Grog Shop, in fact, is co-presenting the upcoming Napalm Death and Melvins show at Globe Iron on Sunday, May 11.
Mike Tata, AEG’s integrated marketing manager, has also been embedded in the local concert scene for more than a decade, selling tickets at Peabody’s; working at the pre-AEG Agora Theater, and for Bravo Artists, which now books The Roxy at Mahall’s 20 Lanes.
Tata said that besides offering local music lovers and up-and-coming local bands another cool place to go and play, AEG hopes to provide what can only be described as an AEG-fueled career stepladder for touring artists.
He figures that will keep them coming back to Cleveland as they rise in popularity and drawing power, rather than treating the city as a gas stop or pass-through on their way to Detroit, Pittsburgh and Columbus.
“That’s something we really miss out on, and of course, there’s leg one and leg two (of tours) and we understand that dynamic,” Tata said. “But this just increases probability for Cleveland to win, which is what we’re looking for.”
Having local bands open the venue isn’t simply convenient, Carol said it’s part of his “mission” and he plans to find ways to get popular local bands on multi-act bills as well as special events and holiday programming.
“There’s a lot of ideas on the table. It’s making them the right fit because I don’t want to just throw a local show on a Tuesday just to fill a Tuesday,” Carol said.
“I want to make sure that they have a night that they can actually celebrate something on.”
Ideally, a band could make their debut at one of the smaller clubs, then as their popularity grows, they move up to a “corporate room” like Globe Iron.
If they make another jump in profile and popularity, then it’s on to Jacobs Pavilion with an eye on eventually landing at Rocket Arena.
A recent prime example is singer-songwriter Chappell Roan, whose May 2024 show at the Agora sold out so fast, the show was moved to Jacobs Pavilion where it again sold out quickly.
While Roan’s meteoric rise as a molten-hot concert draw is pretty rare, AEG’s team believes the approach will work for national touring and local bands.
Related Reading: Chappell Roan captivates campy audience during ‘Midwest Princess’ Cleveland tour stop
Carol said offering local blues-rockers Welshly Arms, who are touring Europe this summer and Youngtown’s popular rock n’ soul band The Vindys who have scored some 2025 opening dates with Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo and who will open for ZZ Top at the MGM Northfield in November.
“So that’s really my ultimate goal. This will be a way to help launch a lot of those bands into bigger rooms. Because if they can do good numbers here, that’s going to speak volumes. People are going to talk about that,” he said.
Learn more about Globe Iron by visiting their website, globeironcle.com.
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