The iconic Imperial Hotel in Erskineville is for sale almost eight years after it last traded for $6.5 million.
The LGBTQ venue in Sydney’s inner west – which shot to fame when it featured in the Australian 90s movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – will be listed on the market shortly.
Publican Fraser Short confirmed it was for sale but would not say how much he hoped to sell it for. “We’ll have to wait and see what happens,” Short said.
Together with publican Scott Leach, Short bought the venue for $6.5 million in August 2015. Leach is also president of the NSW branch of the Australian Hotels Association. Since acquiring it, an additional $6 million has been spent on restoring the pub, complete with a basement for live music, ground floor drag shows and a new Priscillas “drag & dine” restaurant.
Harris Kospetas, chief executive of the Universal Hotels group which owns other LGBTQ venues such as the Newtown Hotel and Darlinghurst’s The Riley, Oxford Hotel and Universal Sydney, said he wasn’t considering adding the venue to its portfolio.
“The Imperial Hotel has been on the market but we have not committed to a purchase as of yet,” Kospetas said.
Short has been offloading his ownership in a number of pubs of late. In March, he sold his stake in five pubs, including the Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel and Northies at Cronulla, to his business partners Arthur Laundy and Laundy Hotels for a price believed to be up to $300 million.
At the time, Short said he was selling the venues to allow him to simplify his life and focus on his family, including four children.