[Editor's note: The "Mark" in the title of this occasional feature is our roving publisher, Mark Bisnow.] Yes, Shirley Temple died this week, but just as part of the old Hollywood thereby disappeared, part of the new Hollywood was born. At the corner of Sunset and Gower Monday, where the legendary CBS Studios used to stand, we snapped John Kilroy, one of the West Coast's most active developers, describing his $450M project to create the "most extraordinary, well-designed, collaborative campus in California, maybe America."
It'll be 350k SF of new office construction, plus a 100k SF rehab of two original buildings.
In these 1938 structures, Burns and Allen did their radio and TV shows before a live audience, the I Love Lucy pilot was filmed, and Bing Crosby, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and Barbra Streisand performed. Since the NBC studios were also nearby, the neighborhood for about three decades was the center of the TV network universe until they dispersed to larger locations elsewhere. But John noted that the tall ceilings and open areas of the pre-air conditioning era are ironically well-suited to today's popular urban-style workplace.
LA had been a laggard in development action post-recession, but now a great deal is going on in numerous submarkets, and not just multifamily but office. And of course creative office, to be specific. Hollywood has seen much decline and neglect over the years, but just like the Lower East Side in NYC, SoMa in San Francisco, and 14th and U in DC, this is exactly the area Gen Y wants to revive. Amazing.
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