Oasis Arts, thanks to a last-minute foundation grant late last year, is now the proud owner of the Oasis club building, and after a light remodel and some internal restructuring the last six months, the venue reopens in July.

We spent last summer and fall mourning the coming loss of another queer space in the city, after Oasis owner and former SF Drag Laureate D'Arcy Drollinger announced that it was the end of the line for the ten-year-old club. At the time, after an estended pandemic closure and two telethons, Drollinger said the place was still only barely breaking even, and with his retirement accounts mostly spent keeping things afloat, it was time to call it quits.

But then, with a final New Year's Eve bash just days away, a Christmas miracle arrived in the form of a foundation grant from philanthropists Mary and Mark Stevens — their son Sky Stevens was an Oasis regular.

"In just more than a decade, Oasis has become a leader in creating new art that connects and entertains, and has become a safe space for our LGBTQ+ community in times when we’ve needed it most. It is a cultural institution that has provided me, and countless others, immense joy,” Sky Stevens said at the time, on behalf of the Stevens Family. "My family and I are excited to see what this next era of Oasis brings to San Francisco."

That grant, as the Chronicle reports this week, the total amount of which was never disclosed, enabled Oasis Arts — the nonprofit Drollinger founded — to purchase the building at 298 11th Street for $3.5 million.

Now with an 11-person board of directors, Oasis Arts has spent the last several months restructuring and planning for the future, as Drollinger tells the Chronicle. This means that the original Oasis LLC, which ran the club, will continue to manage bar operations at the revamped venue, while the nonprofit will oversee all the club's programming. A new direcor of development has come on board, Madeline Howard,  and as the Chronicle notes, Greg Sottolano, an investor in the club, now serves as the executive director of Oasis Arts.

Sottolano also tells the paper that staffing has also been restructured "so everyone isn’t trying to work five jobs."

Drollinger was busy this week at the Frameline film festival premiere of his film Lady Champagne, the follow-up to Shit & Champagne, which grew out of a show Drollinger wrote and starred in at Oasis. It screened Wednesday night at the Castro Theatre — with which Oasis Arts is now a nonprofit partner, and where Drollinger threw a disco-themed reopening party for the renovated theater back in March.

But now her attention will turn to programming for the club, with details on the upcoming event lineup still to be announced.

As for what will look different when Oasis opens its doors again, the front "Champagne Room" bar has gotten some upgrades, and some new murals are reportedly planned in the bathrooms, aka "Club Toilet," but those have not been completed yet pending some further fundraising. A more full facelift and structural renovation will come at a later date.

It looks like Oasis will be back open in time for the annual rooftop party during Dore Alley (the Up Your Alley street fair) on July 26, and there are club nights and cabarets and new shows to come. Also, Drollinger and the Oasis crew, including the drag shows Princess and Reparations, will be hosting Saturday at the Dolores' stage at Oasis Lands, as they have the past two years.

Previously: Christmas Miracle: Oasis Nightclub Saved From Closure With Multi-Million Dollar Philanthropic Gift