The downtown Denver building that formerly housed the restaurant Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. has sold.
Bernari Investment Group LLC paid $1.8 million last Monday for the building at 1437 California St., according to public records. That works out to $288 a square foot for the 6,250-square-foot structure.
The LLC that purchased the property is managed by Amnon Ben-Ari, records show. He owns Zanzibar Billiards Club, a Ballpark pool hall that opened in 2009.
Ben-Ari, who leases Zanzibar’s real estate, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The building was sold by Kent Cherne, whose father purchased 1437 California St. around 1960. It was originally listed for $2.5 million by NAI Shames Makovsky.
“I feel like we both got a fair deal,” Cherne said, adding that he was surprised the building sold as quickly as it did.
Bubba Gump Shrimp opened there in 2007 and had a lease that ran through January 2027. But the restaurant missed two rent payments last year, leading Cherne to sue in November. Bubba Gump closed around the same time.
Cherne said the lawsuit has since been settled.
He had thought that the owner of the adjacent parking lot, which proposed a hotel before COVID, might purchase his building to knock it down and expand the development site. But while his brokers reached out, “it never got anywhere,” he said.
Cherne said he’ll stop when something new opens in the building.
“I hope it does well for him,” he said.
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