BARDAS, Bain Plan $600M Film, TV Studio in Hollywood

The stampede of developers racing to build new film and TV production space to feed content streaming services keeps getting larger and larger. The newest entry in the Los Angeles market will rise in the heart of Hollywood.

BARDAS Investment Group and Bain Capital Real Estate have announced a $600M partnership to redevelop the former Television Center in Hollywood into a new 620K SF urban studio campus to be known as Echelon Television Center.

The 6.4-acre site spans two blocks at 6311 Romaine Street, one of the largest remaining parcels in Hollywood. Bordered by Santa Monica Boulevard and Willoughby Avenue, the location once served as Technicolor’s headquarters and the studio lot for Metro Pictures Corp.

Currently housing about 183K SF of office and studio space, the redeveloped site will reimagine several landmark buildings that were constructed during Technicolor’s golden age in the 1950s.

“We have a strong conviction in the secular demand drivers underpinning the continued growth of the media and entertainment industry,” said Joe Marconi, managing director at Bain Capital Real Estate, in a statement.

“We look forward to reimagining the site and honoring its past while at the same time delivering an unmatched curated experience that meets the evolving needs of today’s entertainment and media content creators,” Marconi said.

BARDAS and Bain formed a joint venture in 2019 to acquire, renovate, develop and operate film and TV production space in key content sub-markets in Los Angeles. The partnership has a pipeline of existing and new development projects encompassing 1.5M SF.

As Hollywood studios and streaming services race to produce more film and TV content, a national shortage of soundstage space is drawing investors into the market for the large leased spaces needed for film production.

At the same time, lucrative film and TV production incentives being dangled by several state economic development agencies to draw studio projects is expanding the market for soundstages from traditional venues like Los Angeles and New York to locations in Georgia and New Jersey, among others.

In June, Menlo Park, CA-based private equity firm Silver Lake announced a $500M investment in Shadowbox Studios, a production company with soundstage facilities in Los Angeles, Atlanta and London, aiming to expand the company’s footprint of leasable film production by more than 4M SF.

The expansion is expected to build additional soundstage space at dozens of facilities operated by the production company. Shadowbox is aiming for a total of 68 soundstages through the expansion, with half of them based in the Atlanta metro. Shadowbox will also expand its soundstage facilities in the Santa Clarita area north of LA.