The iconic Lansdowne Hotel in Sydney has been put up for sale.
According to reports from Sydney Morning Herald, the beloved live music venue in Chippendale has been put up for sale for around AUD$25 million. Per Sydney Morning Herald, the hotel is listed for sale by HTL Property with expressions of interest open until the end of this week.
HTL Property wrote on his website that the Lansdowne Hotel boasts “one of the CBD’s largest combined pub retail footprints” and a “new rooftop beer garden”.
Although the venue has been an important part of the Sydney music scene, HTL director Sam Handy said the hotel could see more success if it changed its operating tactics. “While institutionally popular as a live entertainment venue, the unmistakable scale of The Lansdowne Hotel lends itself favorably to the additional and regular activation of several other levels,” he told PubTic.
First opened in 1932, the Lansdowne Hotel has served as one of Sydney’s main live music hotspots throughout the 80s, 90s and 2000s. It was eventually closed in 2015 due to the country’s lockout laws, before being reopened by the Mary’s Live team in 2017.
In February 2022, Mary’s Live announced that the Lansdowne Hotel would cease operations as a venue last April, with its owners citing their landlord’s decision to renovate it into a hostel.
In May 2022, the Mary’s Live team confirmed that the bandroom at the Lansdowne Hotel would no longer be shutting down, and would instead be handled by new management. It was then revealed that the Oxford Art Factory took custody of the venue.
The Lansdowne Hotel was originally set to relaunch in June last year, but was delayed to March this year. In May, Secret Sounds announced the launch of a new multi-genre club at the venue, dubbed Ground Level. Secret Sounds announced at the time that Ground Level will “feature an exciting mix of artists from various musical genres, including hip-hop, rap, hyper-pop, post-punk and more”. It is currently unclear how Ground Level will be affected by the sale of the venue.