Developer Moves Forward With 15-Acre Production Campus In LA's Arts District

East End Studios submitted its application for a 15-acre studio complex in the Arts District, taking another step toward the construction of the nearly 400K SF campus.

East End's ADLA Campus at the southeast corner of Sixth and Alameda streets will include 16 soundstages, more than 290K SF of Class-A office space and about 107K SF of studio support space.

“The existing and proposed amenities in the area, the sheer size of the property, and the billions of dollars of nearby transit investment represented an unmatched opportunity to bring desperately needed modern production space to Los Angeles,” East End Studios Managing Partner Shep Wainwright said in a statement.

The site is occupied by two produce warehouses and parking, but renderings offer a peek at what it will look like once East End’s project is complete. Designed by Grimshaw with landscape design by Studio-MLA, the campus will have terraces on its outdoor levels and space on the ground level where transport between soundstages and production facilities can move freely. 

“By taking a vertical approach to the campus design, we free up valuable land area for larger studios and base camps while also creating better pedestrian and vehicular circulation between the soundstages and creative workplace space,” Grimshaw partner Andrew Byrne said in a release.

Los Angeles County has the market cornered globally and nationally on soundstage space with 5.4M SF, according to FilmLA. It also posted 94% average occupancy in 2020, a metric that developers and film production boosters point to as evidence that there’s a market to support more soundstages in the area. 

East End told the Los Angeles Times that it hopes to get approvals for the project in the next two years, with two more years for the build-out. The developer is also working on four other projects in the LA area, including one east of this site across the Los Angeles River in Boyle Heights, The Real Deal reported.