Los Angeles Soundstage Complex on the Market

In Los Angeles, scripted television had been the backbone of many soundstages, where a boom in series greenlights during the Streaming Wars era led to increased production. Then a spending pull back beginning in 2023 halted momentum and more stages lost tenants (especially as broadcasters cut down orders and episode counts) and occupancy rates began falling.

As an average, L.A. soundstages surveyed by permitting office FilmLA were 93 percent occupied as of 2019, that number has fallen to 62 percent as of last year. With that turn, more complexes have retooled themselves as creator campuses — including, notably, Sunset Las Palmas Studios — to host influencer shoots or vertically-filmed microdramas with the aim to capitalize on one booming sector. Other campuses have placed themselves on the block (notably Radford Studio Center, which is in talks to sell to Netflix) or are considering repurposing themselves for various industrial uses.

One studio complex that’s now on the market, 3030 Andrita Street in Atwater Village, touts three existing soundstages totaling 34,500 square feet. The campus, now titled BoxCar Studios but formerly named 3030 Studios, is billed by listing agent CBRE as “an ideal fit for a studio, production company, or content creator requiring a plug-and-play facility” after what’s said to be $18.6 million in renovation upgrades.

The space had hosted ABC soap All My Children for a run as well as several Netflix productions for shoots. It had been used as a vault facility by Capitol Records and in the 2000s, Playboy had leased the complex for its TV group, with Hugh Hefner keeping an office on the campus. Private equity fund Gaw Capital had acquired the location in 2018 for a reported $31 million.

The four-acre campus, zoned for a range of M1 industrial purposes including media, is now back on the market, with marketing materials leaning on its proximity to L.A.’s creative engine (“60+ production facilities within 10 miles”). The property is available for sale or lease.

“This offering presents a rare opportunity to acquire a fully renovated, production-ready studio campus with a blank slate for value creation,” states Michael Longo, svp at CBRE. “The property’s flexible layout and M1 zoning support a range of uses, from multi-tenant studio and creative production to single-user occupancy, positioning Boxcar Studios to meet evolving production demand.”

Also part of the pitch is that Los Angeles is likely to be a beneficiary as California keeps ramping up its tax incentives to draw film and TV projects, with Gov. Gavin Newsom doubling the program from $330 million to $750 million annually. That has brought high-profile projects back to the city, including Fox’s Baywatch reboot, and kept the state as the leading market for production spend in the U.S., with $1.4 billion tallied in the first quarter of this year, per industry tracker ProdPro.

CBRE exec Longo adds of the Atwater Village studio complex listing, “At a time when production activity in Los Angeles is poised for a rebound and incentives are driving renewed interest, this asset is uniquely positioned for an investor to step in ahead of the curve and realize substantial upside.”