(Save the date: RealShare Apartments comes to the Westin Bonaventure, Los Angeles, October 24.)

LOS ANGELES-In an effort to create synergies among its office assets in the Los Angeles area, Kilroy Realty Corp. is purchasing Columbia Square, a historic media campus in Hollywood for $65 million, and Tribeca West, a West Los Angeles entertainment-oriented property for $73 million.

Pete Roth from Allen Matkins’ Century City, CA, office, was the lead attorney for KRC in acquiring the properties. The sellers were iStar Financial for Columbia Square and Ocean West Capital Partners for Tribeca West.

KRC’s EVP David Simon tells GlobeSt.com that the Columbia Square purchase is closed, and the Tribeca West deal is expected to be closed by the end of October. At full build-out, the 4.7-acre Columbia Square site at 6121 Sunset Blvd. will include a mixed-use development of up to 650,000 square feet, reduced from a recently entitled 875,000-square-foot project, and KRC will have invested $300 million in the new campus. The site will be redeveloped to preserve its historic character, while creating a state-of-the-art media campus, a new residential community and an amenity-rich retail environment.

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“This is a tremendous development site,” Simon tells GlobeSt.com. “We’re retrofitting the existing historic building to house entertainment companies and production, and then we’ll phase in includes 550,000 square feet of additional office, retail and multifamily space over the next several years.”

Described in the 1940s as “a magnificent structure where the motion-picture industry first took root in Hollywood in 1911,” Columbia Square will get a facelift from a team of L.A.-based architects and designers including Roschen Van Cleve, Rios Clementi Hale and House & Robertson on the multi-phase redevelopment and development of the site. Renovations on Columbia Square are set to begin the first quarter of 2013, and development is expected to be a three- to four-year process.

Tribeca West at 12233 W. Olympic Blvd. has a rich track record as the post-production hub of such box-office hits as “The Campaign, “Snow White,” “Savages and “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” Currently 97% leased, the building houses NBC, Disney and Technicolor. Renovations of this property are expected to begin in early 2014.

The acquisitions fall on the heels of the firm’s acquisition of 6255 Sunset Blvd., which GlobeSt.com previously tweeted about on @GlobeStcom on Twitter and @GlobeStLIVE and reported. Simon tells GlobeSt.com that this property is currently undergoing upwards of $15 million in upgrades and repositioning, and continues the expansion of KRC’s media campus offerings—which include Westside Media Center, home to Shopzilla, Fandango and Comcast—to meet the unique needs of the “digitainment” industry, a growing segment transforming the local business landscape.

“The entertainment space is experiencing an exciting revival with the convergence of the tech and entertainment industries,” Simon said in a prepared statement. “KRC is positioned to create synergies for the production, post-production and creative-media companies whose operations are currently scattered throughout the city.”

Simon added that as L.A. continues to grow its creative economy, Hollywood is experiencing a revival driven by its live-work environment, which has and will continue to be the catalyst for both larger and smaller entertainment and media companies locating there to collaborate with large studios and production companies.

“L.A. doesn’t have its share of supply of quality office,” Simon tells Globest.com, adding that the class-A office vacancy rate is currently just under 6%. “Creating urban mixed-use campuses is what the market and today’s workforce wants.”

Simon says that KRC’s goal is that all of its L.A. office buildings will work together to provide tenants with what they need. “We’ll be able to help them. Our platform is expanding, and we’re providing a solution for entertainment and media users in all of our office assets in this area.”

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Carrie Rossenfeld

Carrie Rossenfeld is a reporter for the San Diego and Orange County markets on GlobeSt.com and a contributor to Real Estate Forum. She was a trade-magazine and newsletter editor in New York City before moving to Southern California to become a freelance writer and editor for magazines, books and websites. Rossenfeld has written extensively on topics including commercial real estate, running a medical practice, intellectual-property licensing and giftware. She has edited books about profiting from real estate and has ghostwritten a book about starting a home-based business.

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