SAN FRANCISCO – When Kink.com announced last year that it was planning to cease producing content at the San Francisco Armory, owner Peter Ackworth sounded more than a little wistful about the prospect of leaving the historic building behind.
“It’s a little sad,” Acworth said at the time. “It’s the end of an era.”
Full closure on that era has now arrived, with Kink selling the Armory for a reported $65 million to SF Armory LLC, a company affiliated with developer Benjamin Weprin, who is in turn associated with Soho House, an organization which bills itself as a “private members’ club for people in the creative industries.”
If indeed the Armory winds up being a Soho House property, the purchase makes sense. Since Kink ceased using it for shoots, the Armory has been in the process of transitioning from a content production facility to a “mixed use” venue, potentially for use in hosting concerts, parties and other events, as well as offering space which can be used for offices and other more-mundane-than-BDSM-shoots purposes.
For the moment at least, Soho House is denying it has any involvement in the Armory sale; a spokesperson for the company told SFGte.com “We love San Francisco, however we don’t have a space confirmed as of now.”
While it’s not clear what Soho House would use the Armory space for, other Soho House locations – including “The Ned” in London – offer lodging, high-end restaurants, meeting rooms, a “range of men’s and women’s grooming services” and members-only clubs.
When Kink first announced its intent to move its content production out of the Armory, Ackworth painted a picture of a painful decision, one grounded largely in the unsustainable economics of maintaining and operating the aging, 200,000 square-foot property.
“This has been a labor of love,” Ackworth said at the time. “We have reinvested back into the building a lot of what the porn has generated. “Were it not for being able to borrow money on the back of the entertainment business, we wouldn’t have money to fix all these turrets.”
Unfortunately, given changes in the adult market, Ackworth said continuing to fund its Armory upkeep from the company’s porn profits had become less feasible.
“Porn is not nearly as profitable as it was,” he said. “We have had to change our business model.”
