If you’ve got a cool $7 million and a clean tax record, get your bid paddle ready: The former home of Love nightclub will go up for bankruptcy auction next month.

The building at 1350 Okie St. NE has been closed since October of last year, when the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration prevented owner Dean Smothers from renewing Love’s liquor license because he’d racked up nearly $100,000 in unpaid taxes, interest, and penalties. The club had been in financially unstable hands for years; Smothers was nearly barred from purchasing the club in 2010 because of tax troubles with his other venue, The Scene, and former owner Marc S. Barnes was forced to sell the building after filing for bankruptcy.

Smothers paid $7.1 million for Love in 2010, but we don’t know the starting bid for the May 1 auction. How much the monstrous (35,000 square feet) space is worth today, and whether D.C. can continue to support superclubs of Love’s ilk (Ibiza went bankrupt last year, too), remains to be seen.

Photo by enviziondotnet. Creative Commons Attribution License.