The operator of Sunset Studios, Hudson Pacific Properties, has acquired Quixote Studios for $360 million, significantly expanding its footprint in the soundstage business.
The Los Angeles-based real estate company said it expected the takeover of Quixote — whose clients include HBO, Walt Disney and NBCUniversal — will help it meet growing demand for soundstage space.
“Quixote strengthens our reach to capture strong secular demand for studio and related assets, including excess demand at our Sunset Studios locations, and enables us to achieve immediate economies of scale while further diversifying our client base,” Jeff Stotland, executive vice president of global studios and services for Hudson Pacific, said in a statement.
Quixote was founded in 1995 and provides production services in L.A., New York, Atlanta and New Orleans. The company, which has 325 employees, operates studios in West Hollywood and Pacoima and near Griffith Park.
The expansion of Hudson Pacific’s empire comes as competition intensifies to provide soundstages, offices and other production facilities to feed a content boom.
Just last month East End Studios submitted an application to the city to build a new studio near the newly famous 6th Street bridge in downtown L.A. With 16 soundstages, East End Studios’ ADLA Campus would be one of the larger studio projects in the pipeline for Los Angeles County, where several developers are rushing to add new facilities.
Existing soundstages in the county have been almost fully rented for years, which can make it hard for new productions to find places to work, said Paul Audley, president of FilmLA, the nonprofit that handles film permits in the region.
“Even if that backs off, which some people are now predicting, we still don’t have enough stage space to deal with that,” Audley said last month.
The volume of programming from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other streaming platforms has been growing at an average rate of 35% per year, Audley said.
Other substantial developments include the redevelopment of Warner Bros. Ranch in Burbank and a new seven-soundstage complex called Sunset Glenoaks Studios in the Sun Valley neighborhood of L.A.
Sunset Glenoaks is being planned by Hudson Pacific and its partner Blackstone. The pair own Sunset Gower Studios, Sunset Bronson Studios and Sunset Las Palmas Studios, all historic studios in Hollywood that have been updated and lease production facilities and offices to people in the entertainment industry.
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Anousha Sakoui, Roger Vincent
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