The latest NYC institution to undergo a transformation is the Limelight.

After a heavenly makeover, the church-turned-legendary nightclub will soon be a massive retail space with high-end retailers setting up shop in the indoor shopping center modeled after a quaint European shopping district.

On the first level, a series of small shops will line the main hall and the rooms in the back are being transformed into a specialty food hall with vendors such as Miss Tea and Carter & Cavero olive oil. There will be a Sweet Room where parents and children can sample treats.

Shops in the main hall will include Hunter Boot’s first store selling outerwear, leather boots and wellies; Therapie New York, an apothecary run by Boyd’s of Madison Avenue; Selima Optique; and Le Sportsac. In addition, Silly Souls baby clothing and shoes, Book Smart, and Brocade Home, created by Lisa Versacio, founder of West Elm will open stores. Brocade’s second store, a 1,500-square-foot space on the second floor, will have themed lifestyle rooms.

Luludenim plans one of the largest stores at Limelight, a 1,500-square-foot space selling AG, Diesel and Robin’s jeans and ready-to-wear by Y-3, Jean Paul Gaultier and Moschino. A Lulu sneaker bar will feature Dsquared and Galliano.

An apothecary room, with red patent leather-covered walls and black lacquer and mirrored fixtures, will feature Caswell-Massey, Om Aroma & Co., a Cosme Proud treatment collection containing 24-karat gold flakes and created by former Shiseido executives, and Sue Devitt, whose line is sold at Barneys New York. Soapology will have a bath tub and an aromatic oil bar for mixing scents.

The J. Sisters, Brazilian siblings who operate a salon on East 57th Street, leased the third floor, once known as the Spider Room. J. Sisters, which popularized the Brazilian bikini wax in New York during the mid-Nineties, will offer haircuts and color, manicures, pedicures and facials.

John Wye’s custom-made leather accessories and screen printed T-shirts for men will be housed in a so-called “skybox” on the third floor. S’Mac, Oprah Winfrey’s favorite mac-and-cheese restaurant, will open on the second and third floors. Among the other retailers will be Tina Tang, a jeweler with a store in the West Village, and Tantra, the maker of tunics for Calypso. Grimaldi Pizza of Brooklyn will have its own entrance on Sixth Avenue and will operate 24/7.

The Limelight in New York opened in 1983 and was owned by Peter Gatien, a mysterious man who wore an eye patch over his left eye.

Located in the former “Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion” on Sixth Avenue in an area once known as the “Ladies’ Mile”, located in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.

In the 1990s, it became the prominent stomping ground of club kids as place to hear techno, goth, and industrial music, and to obtain recreational drugs. Club kids like Heatherette designer Richie Rich, tranny pinup Amanda Lepore and Tunnel promoter-turned-murderer Michael Alig were ’90s counterculture kingpins, the It Kids who dominated New York nightlife.

Alig started “Disco 2000,” the Wednesday party at the Limelight that drew legions of avant-garde and exhibitionist creatures of the night, many of whom would eventually become world famous.

I attended “Disco 2000” at 17-years-old and still consider it one of the best nights of my life. The ecstasy-fueled rave lit up NYC with the brilliance of a million glow sticks and I felt as if I had arrived. This was what NYC nightlife was all about.

The hotspot earned the media’s attention in 1996 when club and party promoter Michael Alig was arrested and later convicted for the killing and dismemberment of Angel Melendez, a resident drug dealer at the club.

Lady Gaga & Richie Rich

The 2003 film Party Monster, starring Macaulay Culkin and Seth Green, was based on this event.

The Limelight was closed by the police, but subsequently reopened several times during the 1990s.  In September 2003, it reopened under the name “Avalon,” however it closed its doors for good in 2007.

Now, the Limelight be will resurrected once again.