Brookfield REIT Buys DreamWorks Campus for $327M

Brookfield REIT has acquired the DreamWorks Animation Campus in Glendale, California, for $326.5 million from a joint venture between Hana Asset Management and Ocean West Capital Partners. With this acquisition along with two others that also closed this month, Brookfield REIT’s total asset value has reached $1.5 billion.

Located at 1000 Flower Street, the seven-building campus is on 15 acres and totals 497,403 square feet. Brookfield announced plans to purchase the property in early November. The acquisition is Brookfield’s entry in to studio assets, which have grown in popularity over the last two years due to the streaming wars.

The pandemic amplified an already hot studio real estate market. In the last two years, filming and production studios have quickly becoming the darling of the Los Angeles real estate market, according to research from CBRE. The global entertainment market has contributed to a 1.2 million-square-foot pipeline of new studio space development and occupancy of existing spaces has stayed above 95%. During quarantine, there was a substantial increase in media consumption, companies are spending vast sums of money to build out their content libraries as they engage in the streaming war, says Eric Willett, regional director of research at CBRE.

The activity has driven more than development. Rents in Burbank’s class-A office market, which houses many media companies, has already surpassed pre-COVID rates—a notable achievement considering the standard office market continues to struggle. The Burbank Media District has a 3.9% vacancy rate, according to research from Newmark.

Newmark co-head of US capital markets Kevin Shannon, vice chairman Alex Foshay, executive managing directors Ken White and Rob Hannan and senior managing director Laura Stumm represented LA Hana OW, an entity of Hana Asset Management and OceanWest Capital Partners, in the transaction.

Brookfield, the parent company of the REIT, has had an active year. Last week, Brookfield secured total capital commitments of over $4 billion as it closed its latest flagship real estate debt fund, the Brookfield Real Estate Finance Fund VI (BREF VI). The total exceeds the initial target of $3 billion. The firm has also closed several significant transactions, including the purchase of the majority of WashREIT’s office for $766 million.

This month, Brookfield REIT also acquired Flats on Front, a new construction 273-unit residential building in the North Waterfront District of Downtown Wilmington, NC, and Verso Apartments, a new construction 172-unit residential building in Downtown Beaverton, Oregon, for a total of $172 million. The REIT also acquired 6123-6227 Monroe Court, a 208,000-square-foot property in Chicago submarket of Morton Grove, IL; 8400 Westphalia Road, a 100,000-square-foot property in Washington, DC submarket of Upper Marlboro, MD; and McLane Distribution Center, a 211,000-square-foot property in Lakeland, FL, situated between Tampa and Orlando for a total of $71 million.