Elbo Room building for sale, asks $4.2 million

Another day, another story about Elbo Room hitting the market.

The perennially popular Valencia Street bar-slash-music venue the Elbo Room has teetered on the edge of almost but not quite being put out of business by development interests for years, with various near misses and scares dating to 2007.

It’s hard to say whether or not the new listing offering the entire building at 645-647 Valencia for $4.2 million is shocking or shockingly predictable.

“Commercial space with approved site permit for future development on prime Valencia Street location,” realtor Susan Ring writes about the property, adding that “site permits allow for five stories with seven residential condos, one commercial condo, and four car parking.”

The permits date to 2009, and the Department of Building Inspection now lists them as “reinstated” as of this August.

The plans call for “preserving and renovating two-story commercial structure, adding three story addition for a total height of five stories,” with new condos pressed into the upper four.

The Elbo Room announced via Facebook in 2015 that it had negotiated an extension of its about-to-expire lease through January of this year.

In August of 2017, Mission Local reported that the bar had won yet another extension, through January 1 of next year.

The new listing says that the January 1 expiration is still in effect, so everything is proceeding according to plan here. It appears that anyone hoping for yet another Elbo Room extension might be out of luck, though stranger things have happened.

City Hall named the bar a legacy business in 2017, and the owners may attempt to relocate.

According to Ring’s listing, their present lease runs $15,625/month, but at current market rates the space is probably worth over $18,000/month.

• 645 Valencia [Loopnet]
• Elbo Room Renewed [Eater SF]
• 645 Valencia Permits [DBI]
• Elbo Room Move Delayed [Mission Local]
• Legacy Business Report, August 2017