A Hollywood entertainment complex formerly home to two of the silver screen's most important early players is slated for a pricey and comprehensive makeover in the latest effort to bring new production and studio space to the market in Los Angeles.
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Bardas Investment Group and Bain Capital Real Estate are going to invest $600M in upgrades to the Television Center complex on Romaine Street near Santa Monica and Cahuenga boulevards, the companies announced Thursday.
The 6.4-acre property once held Technicolor's headquarters and the studio lot for Metro Pictures Corp., which merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1924. The existing property was built between 1930 and 1966 and holds about 183K SF of creative office and studio space.
Since the pandemic, the demand for streaming content and the dearth of new facilities have thrown studio and production space into the spotlight for CRE developers and investors. From just outside Downtown LA to the San Fernando Valley, a slew of new studio facilities have been proposed.
Bardas and Bain bought the Television Center property from BLT Enterprises in March, paying just over $134M, property records show. That’s more than double the $64M that BLT paid in August 2020 for the site.
Plans for the site include adding a new mid-rise office building with outdoor terraces where there is now a parking lot and some older buildings. Elsewhere on the campus, a parking lot will be replaced by four new soundstages, a base camp area and a six-story office building.
Last year, Bardas and Bain submitted plans to the city to build a $450M studio project on a Santa Monica Boulevard site that once held a Sears.
“New studios are a reflection of how important this business is to the economy,” University of Southern California economist Richard Green told the Los Angeles Times.
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