Demand for film and production space in Los Angeles is booming and Bardas Investment Group wants in.
The firm plans to develop a production studio and office complex at the site of a defunct Sears store in Hollywood, according to the Los Angeles Times.
West Hollywood-based Bardas would build five soundstages and two five-story office buildings totaling 350,000 square feet, along with other production support facilities, the Times reported. Bardas is calling the project Echelon Studios.
The development site totals about five acres on Santa Monica Boulevard at North St Andrews Place, which is now mostly parking.
As the streaming services have grown, so too has the need for more office and production space in the city. Netflix signed the biggest office lease of last year to establish its first in-house animation studio in Burbank.
Unlike the sinking office market, the occupancy rate for production space in the Greater L.A. region has remained above 90 percent for the last few years, according to FilmLA. Demand is expected to increase as pandemic-related restrictions are lifted and film projects ramp up.
Hackman Capital Partners is gobbling up studio space across L.A. with plans to expand many of those properties. And Hudson Pacific Properties now owns about 1 million square feet of the 5.2 million square feet of leasable soundstages in L.A. County. Blackstone bought a stake in that portfolio last summer.
Bardas is working on two other projects in Hollywood. In February, the firm released plans for a 68,000-square-foot office project on the corner of Melrose Avenue and Seward Street. It is also overhauling an office building on Fountain Avenue and Cahuenga Boulevard.
[LAT] — Dennis Lynch
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