Great news for Sydney’s live music scene today. The Daily Telegraph has announced that our dearly departed Sandringham Hotel, which earlier this month closed its doors for good, has been snapped up by people in the biz.
And not just any people at that. Sources have revealed that Tim Northeast, owner of The Corner Hotel down in Melbourne, purchased the Sando for between $2.6m and $2.8m. That’s well below the required 3.6m, but at least the venue is in the hands of someone who can potentially bring it back to its former glory, which at one point boasted 70 live bands a month.
The iconic watering hole-turn-live-music venue located in Newtown was put in the hands of insolvency firm Ferrier Hodgson back in July, after previous owner and promoter Tony Townsend hit tough times. Despite massive disapproval from the public, the venue still closed down with no 11th-hour revival…until now.
Though neither Northeast nor anyone from the insolvency firm have commented on this news yet, and the threat of the pub turning into apartments is still real, news late last week that a new music venue in the heart of Newtown, named the Newtown Social Club, would appear soon and be run by the very same people that run the Corner Hotel and Northcote Social makes it look like the plans are on to make dramatic changes to the Sando.
