REIT Invests Hundreds Of Millions In Luxury Trailers Used By Hollywood A-Listers
Hudson Pacific Properties has acquired two companies that provide trailers and other services to film production studios, Star Waggons and Zio Studio Services, for a total of $222M.
“Bringing Star Waggons and Zio Studio Services together under the same umbrella with our Sunset Studios business enables us to capture a greater share of production services revenue at our facilities, as well as other studios and on location,” Hudson Pacific Senior Vice President of Global Studios Jeff Stotland said in a statement.
Star Waggons was founded by actor Lyle Waggoner after his stints on The Carol Burnett Show and Wonder Woman in the 1960s and '70s, when he realized there was a market for luxury trailers on movie and TV locations. At first, Waggoner bought trailers and rented them, but eventually, he started manufacturing trailers.
Star Waggons is now known for its high-end and multicast trailers, as well as makeup, wardrobe, production and other specialized trailers, with a fleet of more than 650 units in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Atlanta and Vancouver. Lyle Waggoner's son and Star Waggons President Jason Waggoner will continue to lead the business, and his brother Beau Waggoner will remain as an adviser.
Zio Studio Services' fleet, which operates in Los Angeles and Atlanta, includes about 750 transportation and equipment assets. That includes cast, makeup and wardrobe trailers, specialized transportation vehicles, portable power generators and tow plants, as well as sanitation systems and other equipment for production sites.
Hudson Pacific specializes in office and studio properties on the West Coast. The REIT owns three studio properties and adjacent buildings in partnership with Blackstone Group: Sunset Gower, Sunset Bronson and Sunset Las Palmas, which have a combined 35 soundstages totaling 1.2M SF.
Earlier this year, Hudson Pacific and Blackstone unveiled plans to develop Sunset Glenoaks Studios to take advantage of the growing market for soundstages.
Hudson Pacific and Blackstone aren't the only major investors interested in studios. About a year ago, Los Angeles-based Hackman Capital Partners purchased Silvercup Studios, a famed New York production facility where The Sopranos was filmed, for $500M, and Georgia is also a hot spot for studio investment and development.
