Bardas, Bain Get Green Light for $450M Hollywood Studio

Bardas Investment Group and Bain Capital got the green light from the Los Angeles Planning Commission this week to build a 511K SF soundstage and office complex in Hollywood.

The $450M studio project will be located at 5601 Santa Monica Boulevard, according to a report in Urbanize Los Angeles.

The six-story project, to be known as Echelon Studios, will encompass four 19K Sf soundstages and a 15K SF flex stage. The 388K K SF of offices will be built in two five-story towers that will be connected by a bungalow village of creative suites.

The 5-acre studio complex, which will replace a vacant Sears department store, also will include 12.3K SF of restaurants and an underground parking garage.

West Hollywood-based Bardas and Bain bought the property in 2021 for $82M. The new studio complex is slated to be completed by mid-2026.

According to renderings, the glass office buildings will resemble stacked clear Legos with terrace decks. The buildings are being designed by Rios of Leimert Park.

The film production and studio real estate sector in Los Angeles continues to be hot, as demand from streaming services will continue to expand.

In March, Hackman Capital Partners expanded its $8B portfolio in the film and TV production sector. The Los Angeles-based company unveiled a $1B redevelopment of the Radford production lot formerly owned by ViacomCBS.

Hackman is planning to build 25 soundstages encompassing 2.2M SF on the lot at 4024 Radford Avenue, as well as 1.4M SF of associated office space, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Hackman bought the Radford Ave. studio, then encompassing 18 soundstages and 210K SF of offices, in 2021 in a $1.85B sale-leaseback deal with ViacomCBS, which continues to use the studio for two of its local broadcast affiliates in Los Angeles, KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV.

In addition to the expansion of soundstages at the site, which is now known as Radford Studio Center, Hackman is planning to build 300K SF of storage space for wardrobes and other Film and TV support services, 725K SF of production offices and an additional 700K SF of office space available for rent, the Times reported.

Hackman has rapidly expanded its studio portfolio in the past two years as the voracious appetite of streaming services for new film and TV content has fueled the development of soundstages in the traditional production hubs and Los Angeles and New York, as well as emerging top tier locations including New Jersey and Georgia.