Radford Studio Center Could Get $1B In Upgrades To The 55-Acre Property
The historic San Fernando Valley studio complex that gave Studio City its name is slated for improvements to help it keep up with the growing demand for soundstages in Los Angeles and the needs of modern productions.
Radford Studio Center announced Monday the Radford Studio Center Plan, a plan to modernize the production facility via a $1B investment in the property.
The studio is owned by an affiliate of Hackman Capital Partners and operated in partnership with The MBS Group.
What's now the Radford Studio Center opened in 1928 as the original Mack Sennett Studios. Since then it has been home to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Gilligan’s Island, Seinfeld, and many more television and film productions.
Following the major investment, the 55-acre studio complex would have 2.2M SF of buildings, including up to 25 soundstages and 300K SF of production support space for uses including storage and a mill. The upgrades would also include adding 735K SF of support office space and 700K SF of additional office space that would be for rent to entertainment companies, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Though the plan proposes up to approximately 1M SF of net new space, a release from the studio notes that new space is "substantially less than what is permitted under current zoning."
Studio ownership also noted, in the recent past, California has lost out on nearly $8B in economic activity, tens of thousands of jobs, and over $350M in state and local revenues from film and television productions that have relocated elsewhere, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
The new master plan for the studio complex would be a much-needed road map for the growth of the property, supporters say. In the past, new additions to the studio were piecemeal, a studio executive told the Los Angeles Times.
"There was never really a master plan,” studio President Mike Klausman told the LA Times. “You would never tear down anything, just add on. We had to work around what was there.”
Hackman owns five studios in the LA area and is planning another big-ticket upgrade to the tune of $1.25B at Television City that will add soundstages, production support facilities and offices for rent.
