Burbank Stays Hot With $61.5M Creative Office Sale
The Link, a seven-story Burbank office building with post-production, broadcasting, screening and editing facilities, has sold for $61.5M to Irvine-based Pendulum Property Partners.
The 122K SF property is located in the Burbank Media District, a section of the city near its southern border and the Los Angeles River where household names Warner Bros. and The Walt Disney Co. have studios. The sale was announced Monday by Newmark.
“Buoyed by persistent demand from content creation providers and synergistic post-production servicers, the Burbank Media District’s vacancy rate has dropped to sub 4 percent,” Newmark co-Head of Capital Markets Kevin Shannon said in a statement.
The area’s vacancy rate is 3.8% — the lowest in the LA office market, according to Newmark.
The seller, a partnership between Fortress Investment Group and Ocean West Capital Partners, was represented by Shannon and Newmark executive managing directors Ken White and Rob Hannan and Senior Managing Director Laura Stumm. Public records indicate that the partnership purchased the property in 2017, paying $40.3M.
The Link was 76% leased to five tenants at the time of the sale. The property was renovated in 2019 and now features an outdoor courtyard, fiber internet connectivity and a 2,500 SF seventh-floor outdoor patio.
Pendulum's immediate plans for the building aren't yet clear. A request for comment from Pendulum was not immediately returned.
Though it has long been an entertainment hub, “Burbank has benefited tremendously from the explosive growth of content providers, streaming or otherwise,” Hannan said in a statement.
In September, Netflix signed a 171K SF lease in the city, albeit outside of the Media District, at 2300 West Empire Ave. in the Burbank Empire Center to house a dedicated animation studio. The company was growing in Burbank even before the coronavirus pandemic. In October 2019, Netflix leased 60K SF in Burbank Studios in the Media District.
Companies that predate the streaming wars are also growing in Burbank. Warner Bros. is expanding in the district, with plans to move into two forthcoming office buildings designed by Frank Gehry.
