Insomnia Hip-hop Club At The Old Leader Price On Soi 12?

[Tod Daniels]

Anyone know what's actually being built in the old Leader Price Building next to Times Square in the small complex near Soi 12 where Greg has his Sunbelt Asia and Sunrise Tacos?

I talked to a "white-horse-souse", (err. .. a white house source ) as well as the thai workers in the building and heard it was going to be made into a Bangkok branch of the "Insomnia" a hi-hop club like the one in Pattaya. However an email to their site didn't get a response (big shocker there... ).

They just tore the roof off the building and are in the process of adding another floor to it, so it seems that an "Insomnia" type of two storey club isn't out of the question. They’re certainly dumping TONZ of money into the building if that is indeed what they’re doing.

IMHO that is just what Soi 12 needs; a club like that in a complex with MAYBE 20 parking spaces, lol. It'll be like when Ministry of Sound was on Soi 12 with parked cars lining the street both ways leaving room for only moto-cy's to pass by an already too narrow soi. There goes the neighborhood, lol...

In other news it appears Nomad the Moroccan food restaurant is NOT going to ever reopen as they're hauling out the fixtures as fast as they can break them loose from the walls. Soi 12 has incredible foot traffic as the dazed and confused foreigners make their way nightly to Cabbages and Condoms, but the Nomad NEVER EVER had more than a few customers in it, unless they were doing a special function like when the thai band Thaitanium played there. Oh well, at least I hope the investors get something back on their massive investment(s) into what was clearly a losing proposition from the beginning.

Can anyone confirm or deny the Insomnia rumor?

Note 2 MODZ: If you feel this is more suited to the farang/pub forum, feel free to move it.

[stickman]

Not a rumour. It is fact.

[Tod Daniels]

Hmm, sad to hear it isn't a rumor.

Truly the logistics for parking the number of customers who'd patronize a club that size are going to be one BIG cluster fu_ck; especially given Soi 12 is a dead-end soi with no way out a the bottom. (hence the aptly named 'dead-end soi' ) .

I suppose they could always negotiate with the guy who owns the Darling Massage Parlor and not coincidentally the land the former Nomad restaurant is on. They could lease the land, knock down the "haunted" (according to all the thais who live on my soi) thai house; take away the canvas bar tent area and make it into a parking lot for the club. It even has its own small building with a set of bathrooms in the corner of the property, (so people would stop pissing in the telephone booths in front of gate to my apartment driveway ) Their other option could be to negotiate with the people in Sukhumvit Plaza (aka: Little Korea Town) and use the underground parking.

Who knows really how they’ve planned for the expected volume of people. Maybe like so many things here in the glorious “Land ‘O Thais” they haven't even given it a thought.

We certainly wouldn't want them to be guilty of "thinking too much", now would we?

Edited February 13, 2010 by tod-daniels

[mmushr00m]

hip hop ....one of my biggest pet peeves is seeing thai kids dress, walk and act like inner city black kids.

[britmaveric]

Well Insomnia is more trance/euro techno if the truth be told. The bottom bar normally plays latest dance R&B, and Thai-Pop with Coyote dancers both downstairs and upstairs.

I had a good laff at an Arab lad dancing upstairs - he thought he had pulled a nice looking bird on his own and was ready to take her home. Well she was a coyote dancer and informed him if he wanted to take her it would cost 800bht, bar fine and course a stipend for said young lady. He was gutted.

[sokal]

hip hop ....one of my biggest pet peeves is seeing thai kids dress, walk and act like inner city black kids.

Young Thai guys around BKK are known to dress with the latest fashion. You can see it with their tight pants and goofy brite shoes.

[DP25]

They don't need a huge parking lot. Soi12 isn't a long walk from Nana.

[cdnvic]

One barely legible post trashed. Please try to conform to a basic sense of literacy.

[dddave]

For what is a dead end Soi, I've always been amazed at the amount of traffic on '12, sometimes, even the motocy's have difficulty getting thru. It's not going to get any better when the nearly finished Ramada Hotel down the far end opens.

It looks like the mega-spa building that was MINISTRY-of-SOUND is for sale from a listing I saw on Sunbelt, another big white (was purple) elephant on soi 12.

Imsomnia might do OK if they play it right and appeal to the big spenders staying at the Sheraton and other hi-end hotels on that end of Suk. A lot of people miss the up scale ambiance of SPASSO, formally in the Sharaton.

I was kind of hoping that INSOMNIA-BKK would open in the vacant Nana Disco space; bring the old buzz back to Soi-4.

Edited February 14, 2010 by dddave

[bkkjames]

Actually just thought this through a bit more and I'm talking rubbish, it's right next to the Sheraton Grande and Westin accross the street, they'll obviously sort out any potential noise problems.

Don't fancy walking past there at kick out time though, that will be horrible. Anybody know when they plan to open?

Will be ugly is correct.

Between the beggars, katoeys and tailor touts, I thought that area was pretty borderline even during the daytime. Add in the inevitable Tuk Tuk crowd, more of the above and call it Insomnia or call it Overpriced, either way I give it a total of 6.8 months before the closed signs reappear. Just enough time to sell a few people 'VIP' memberships to a lifetime of Black Label that they will never get to drink.

I am just surprised it wasn't renovated to be an Indian restaurant - we don't have enough of those in this part of the city. Perhaps in it's next life, it can come back as Chuwit Park Part Deux.

Edited February 15, 2010 by bkkjames

[hhgz]

"They don't need a huge parking lot. Soi12 isn't a long walk from Nana."

That's tight. The people whining about parking for a club that's not going to open for at least a year are missing a lot more than a parking space. There are several sois next to soi 12 and, believe it or not, more sois on the opposite side of Sukhumvit. All of the soi have sub-sois which accommodate parking. Too, there are dozens of apartment complexes, condo developments and hotels that allow shirt-term parking for non-guests/residents/owners.

[Tod Daniels]

There are several sois next to soi 12 and, believe it or not, more sois on the opposite side of Sukhumvit.

LISTEN: as fast as the thais are working on this project, it will be open well before a frickin' year. Every day there are between 10 and 20 thais working on this building. I know as I must walk past it twice a frickin' day.

Clearly you are more an expert of this area than I could ever pretend or hope to be.

I humbly bow to your knowledge and acumen of the available parking in this area.

You are a parking logistics EXPERT.