Oprah Winfrey Sells Harpo Studios For $32 Million

Chicago talk show host and philanthropist, Oprah Winfrey, is selling Harpo Studios in Chicago to a developer in the next 30 days. The star has also put up her Chicago apartment for sale at $7.75 million.

She filmed ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ at the studio from 1990 to 2011, but later started the ‘Oprah Winfrey Network’ on cable after she closed the talk show.

‘We have entered into a purchasing agreement with Sterling Bay for the four-building Harpo Studios campus in Chicago’s West Loop, We expect the transaction to be closed in 30 days. The property will be leased back to Harpo for two years and the studio will continue to produce programming for OWN,’ Oprah told Crain’s Chicago Business in a statement.

Oprah first came to Chicago in 1984 to WLS-TV’s morning talk show, ‘A.M. Chicago’. A month later, the show was No. 1 in the market and renamed ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ in 1985.

Oprah moved to Harpo Studios in 1990 and is credited with transforming the once-gritty industrial area to a neighborhood filled with families and trendy restaurants.

In 2011, then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley named the street outside Harpo Studios ‘Oprah Winfrey Way’.