Gym muscles in to Tower Records site
The owners of the Sunset Strip building that was home to a famed Tower Records store have signed a boutique New York gym operator as the first tenant for a three-story building they intend to erect in its place.
David Barton Gym will be the anchor tenant of the planned building at 8801 W. Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood. Chicago developer Sol Barket still needs city approval for the proposal to demolish the empty record store and rebuild on the site.
The developer hopes to begin work on the new retail and office building next spring, said gym operator David Barton. There are already a handful of gyms in the vicinity, but Barton says his will compete by being “cooler than most.”
Each of his gyms, also in Miami, Seattle, Chicago and Seattle, has an individual, ornate interior style. A New York branch, for example, has Victorian touches.
In West Hollywood “it will totally be a nod to rock ‘n’ roll,” Barton said.
He estimated that it would cost about $5.4 million to install the 27,000-square-foot gym. Memberships would cost about $125 or $150 a month, he said. The gym would be the middle floor of the project, with shops at street level and offices for rent upstairs.
The site of the former record store, where famous musicians sometimes put on impromptu performances, is in an “incredible location,” said real estate broker Jay Luchs of CB Richard Ellis, who is not involved with the project.
“You are sitting in the middle of a hub that loves its community and where tourists, locals and outsiders want to visit,” Luchs said.
