Entertainment Complex Sells for More than $200 Million

By Lookout Staff

December 22, 2009-- The largest Los Angeles County office real estate deal of the year came in just as 2009 comes to a close – and right here in Santa Monica.

Maguire Properties last week sold the Lantana Media Entertainment Campus, which is located on Olympic Boulevard in the eastern end of the city. The buyers were Lionstone Group, based in Houston, and the Recording Academy, which operates the Grammy Awards.

Officials would not comment on the cost of the transaction. But real estate insiders estimate the total at more than $200 million.
Lionstone takes possession of four of the five buildings on the 530,000-square-foot complex. The buildings’ tenants include Revolution Studios, IMAX Corp., NBC Universal Television and Dick Clark Productions.

The Recording Academy has acquired the fifth building, a 67,000-square-foot, three-story structure. The Recording Academy has been a tenant of the building since March, when it left its headquarters on Pico Boulevard.

Maguire purchased the complex from Hines in 2004 for $137 million when it contained three structures and had recently received City approval for the additional two buildings. They were constructed in 2007 and 2008.

Hines currently owns the nearby Papermate facility, which it has proposed to tear down as part of a plan to create a 1 million-square-foot mixed-use complex. ("Developer Promises Sustainable Community with Large Project," December 21, 2009)