Historic CBS Studio Center In Los Angeles Sells For $1.8B: Report

A pair of real estate investment firms have paid more than $1.8 billion for Los Angeles’ historic CBS Studio Center.

What Happened: Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management LLC outbid a dozen potential buyers for the property, resulting in a purchase price that was roughly $500 million more than the studio projected, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing unnamed "people familiar with the matter."

The property, which covers 18 sound stages and more than 210,000 square feet of office space, was the production home classic television series including “Gunsmoke,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Seinfeld,” along with more recent programs including “Big Brother” and “SEAL Team.”

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Why It Matters: Studio production space has become a hot commodity in the entertainment industry, fueled largely by the spurt of new productions created for streaming services. Last week, the private equity firm TPG paid $1.1 billion for the Cinespace Studios in Chicago and Toronto, which have a total of 56 stages. On Monday, Netflix NFLX announced it was renewing its contract with the Pinewood Group for the use of its Shepperton Studios outside London in a pact that will expand the facility by almost 1 million square feet of new production space.

CBS Studio was put up for sale last summer by ViacomCBS VIAC. In 2019, pre-merger CBS sold its Television City complex in Los Angeles for $750 million to Hackman Capital.

Photo: Studio Sarah Lou / Flickr Creative Commons