Sunset Strip’s Viper Room, neighboring properties sell for $80M

The Los Angeles Business Journal reports that the Viper Room, West Hollywood’s famous rock club, has sold along with neighboring properties for $80 million.

The sale includes the entire block between Larrabee and San Vicente on Sunset Boulevard—two liquor stores, a barber shop, a law office, the novelty gift boutique Aahs!, and two parking lots, CoStar confirmed to Curbed.

For the last few years, the formerly gritty Sunset Strip has been changing left and right—with plans to add private clubs, high-end condos, and even a mixed-use complex designed by Frank Gehry. Still, the sale of the Viper Room still feels significant.

A representative for the buyer, an Arizona-based LLC called 8850 Sunset, told the Journal that while there is no plan to redevelop the site, the new owners are “looking to see what the highest and best use would be.”

Developer Astani Enterprises was listed with CoStar as a representative for the seller, says the Journal. Astani recently developed the 5550 Apartments near Hollywood Boulevard and Western. The project was completed last year.

The Viper Room opened in 1993, with actor Johnny Depp as a co-owner and a slew of celebrity regulars. It has changed hands a few times since, and Depp is no longer a partial owner.

The Sunset Strip’s music venues—the Whisky, the Roxy—have so far avoided redevelopment, but many other properties and sites along the Strip have big plans in their futures: A low-slung building between Doheny and Hammond is slated to become a striking 19-story hotel; a shopping center at Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevard will be razed for a Frank Gehry project with retail space, 219 apartments, 30 condos, and a central pedestrian plaza.

• Sunset Strip Properties Sell for $80 Million [LA Business Journal]
• Mapping the fancy new developments headed to the Sunset Strip [Curbed LA]