Developers near deal to buy out Hustler Club

Strip club could give way to office condos

From left: Jack Guttman, rendering for 630 West 52nd Street and Hustler Club
From left: Jack Guttman, rendering for 630 West 52nd Street and Hustler Club

Developers Jack Guttman and Steve Schwartz’s proposed office condo building on 12th Avenue is one step closer to becoming a reality — and its birth would mean the death of a seedy footnote in New York City’s real estate history.

Guttman and Schwartz have reached a preliminary agreement to buy out Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, the strip joint that occupies the block between West 51st and 52nd streets where the pair want to build, Crain’s reported. Earlier this year, a judge ordered the club to pay $2.1 million in back taxes.

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“We’ve reached a deal in the last three weeks to buy them out,” Alan Weisman, a leasing and sales broker at Lee & Associates representing the partnership, told the website.

The Hustler Club’s exit would make it easier to attract tenants to the 240,000-square-foot building, which is being marketed to television and film production companies. Interested firms, who would have to invest heavily in customizing their spaces, were not interested in buying into the building if the strip joint remained on the block, Weisman told Crain’s. [Crain’s]Tom DiChristopher