Billboards – whether vinyl, digital or neon – are a big deal in Hollywood, and not only for advertisers. Every now and then they make for big real estate deals, too.

Last month, for example, Venice developer Kor Group Inc. put a property at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street on the market. The property? A 36-foot by 36-foot vertical section of a west-facing wall atop the Broadway Lofts.

Carlos Lopez, president of Hanley Investment Group’s Urban Retail Advisors unit in Irvine, was retained to sell the sign. He expects the space, which is fully permitted to display neon signs, will sell quickly for a high price. Though he declined to name an asking price, he did say Kor has received proposals to lease the space for as much as $30,000 a month, or $360,000 a year.

The sign space, on a building near such popular Hollywood destinations as the Pantages Theatre and the W Hotel & Residences, has the potential to grab a lot of eyeballs. According to Urban Retail’s marketing brochure for the space, about 112,000 cars pass through the famed intersection each day in addition to foot traffic generated by both tourists and commuters using the nearby Metro subway station. The parcel, on a building collectively owned by its loft residents, came to be marketed for sale on its own after the developer opted not to package it for sale along with the building’s ground-floor retail last year.

Lopez said such prominent sign space comes open only rarely in a busy media market such as Hollywood. And this sign is particularly rare because it actually can be sold.

“In this is a legal real estate parcel, so you can outright deed it,” he said. “There just aren’t many opportunities like this.”

– Bethany Firnhaber