Netflix Leads Bidding for Radford Studio Lot

A Studio City lot that sold for nearly $1.9 billion five years ago is headed to the courthouse steps. Lenders led by Goldman Sachs will auction the 55-acre Radford Studio Center in Pomona on Nov. 24, with Netflix lined up as the leading bidder, according to The Real Deal ^[1].

Netflix had been negotiating to buy the campus for as much as $400 million ^[1]. A source told The Hollywood Reporter the purchase remains "a done deal," Bisnow reports ^[2].

How we got here

• Hackman Capital Partners paid $1.85 billion for the lot in 2021, the same year it was appraised at $1.8 billion ^[2].
• The lenders repossessed the property from Hackman nine months ago and now want roughly $1.3 billion, about the debt and fees owed ^[1][2].
• Netflix asked Goldman to run the foreclosure first, partly because Measure ULA, a 5.5 percent tax on sales above $10.9 million, could cost up to $22 million on a $400 million deal ^[1].
• Netflix already rents three office buildings at Sunset Studios plus a Vine Street animation campus of about 95,000 square feet ^[1].

But the auction is not locked up. Private equity firms or institutional investors hunting distressed assets could still bid, The Real Deal notes, though Los Angeles production sits near historic lows, which shrinks the buyer pool ^[1]. Bisnow adds that studio owners have been squeezed by higher interest rates and falling occupancy since the strikes ^[2].

What it means for you

This is what a reset looks like in hard numbers. By our math, $1.85 billion across 55 acres was about $33.6 million an acre, while $400 million works out to roughly $7.3 million an acre. Any investor in specialty property, from studios to labs, should check how much of a past price depended on one tenant's booming demand.

Zoom out

Streaming services have cut back on new shows since the strikes and a subscriber slowdown, Bisnow reports, and that has left independently owned studio lots among the hardest hit corners of commercial real estate ^[2].