The future of the Lansdowne Hotel is up in the air – again
Image: The Lansdowne Hotel. Image: Lansdowne Hotel/Facebook.
By ROBBIE MASON
The Lansdowne Hotel, a treasured live music venue in Chippendale, is up for sale for roughly $25 million, and its future as a live music powerhouse remains clouded by doubt. HTL Property has listed the four-level property for sale on its website with expressions of interest open until 16 August.
Ominously, the online advertisement refers to 12 current accommodation rooms and a “clear opportunity to capitalise on the resurgence of the international student market”. It also cites “favourable planning approvals in place which may support further redevelopment of the site”.
Sales agents from HTL Property and IB Property are handling the sale process.
IB Property’s Steffan Ippolito stated, “the size of the site with the floor plates of the building and the planning approvals mean that the Lansdowne Hotel presents with some very obvious alternative-use options.”
“We expect that it will attract interest from astute investors interested in repurposing the building for commercial, retail and accommodation purposes.”
HTL Property’s Sam Handy, meanwhile, said, “while institutionally popular as a live entertainment venue, the unmistakable scale of The Lansdowne Hotel lends itself favourably to the further and regular activation of multiple other levels.”
According to HTL Property, the site has “one of the CBD’s largest combined pub trading footprints”. Recent urban renewal in surrounding areas – Frasers’ $2 billion Central Park precinct and the adjacent Broadway Shopping Centre, for example – makes the pub an attractive prospect for investors and developers.
A pub with mixed fortunes
The live music institution appears to have had mixed fortunes in recent years. It first closed in 2015 due to Sydney’s lockout laws.
In February 2020, Marys Group, who had assumed management of the pub in 2017, announced the venue’s impending closure. The decision was a response to a dispute with the landlords, who intended to transform dedicated gig space into additional hostel-style accommodation.
But the owners of the Oxford Art Factory stepped in at the last moment, took over custodianship and refurbished the property, leading to an agreement between the new management and the building’s owners to dispense with plans that would have shifted the venue’s focus away from music and entertainment.
Under the guidance of Mark Gerber, CEO and founder of the Oxford Art Factory, the pub extended its entertainment repertoire. Gerber told NME in June last year that he has a “more varied approach to venue use” than others. Rather than developing the Lansdowne’s reputation for one particular style of music, Gerber promoted “more electronic music and live bands”.
Highlighting the importance of underground music, Gerber stated in that interview, “it’s not all about profitability; it’s about curation and programming… Having an ear to the ground is essential”
With a 5 AM liquor licence with rare first floor extended trading hours, the pub has become a much-loved haunt not only for locals and students from nearby universities but punk fans, hip hop heads, night owls and dance music aficionados.
Outpouring of community adoration for Lansdowne
Richard Marshall, a frequent punter at the venue and former University of Sydney student, emphasised to City Hub the importance of maintaining the Lansdowne Hotel as live music venue.
Fondly recollecting gigs there and post-class beers, Marshall said, “I met one of my favourite Aussie bands – DZ Deathrays – at an after-show party at the Lansdowne where they were on the decks. Never had a bad night there.”
“One of the rare Sydney dive bars that was geninely dive-y.”
The pub has long held a reputation for rollicking events and nocturnal escapades. Lila Pierce told City Hub that, once she heard a friend’s grandmother call the venue the “Pants-downe”, she too adopted the lexicon, embedding the decades-old nickname among her own peers.
Pierce remembers being “moved to tears watching the [American punk rock band] Downtown Boys perform years ago” at the Lansdowne.
“It was the first time I saw a successful music group of diverse sexual identities and ethnic backgrounds absolutely shred a set. Their communist saxophone punk music made this old dag have a public cry during a mosh pit,” she continued.
“My younger friend who had never seen me moved to tears over anything noticed and made sure to point it out to anyone nearby. The band gave me a bunch of stickers at the end.”
