Although four years away from completion, Warner Bros. Entertainment’s makeover of its Burbank properties is full swing.
Executives are excited about new soundstages to be built for them at the Ranch Lot property.
The Ranch, just up Hollywood Way from the main studio lot, will become home to 16 state-of-the-art soundstages, along with accompanying production support space, a multi-level parking structure, a commissary, mill space and a 320,000-square-foot office complex.
To be built by Worthe Real Estate Group in Santa Monica and Stockbridge Capital, a San Francisco private equity real estate investment firm, the facilities are a way for Warner Bros. to support all of WarnerMedia’s production groups, said Dan Dark, executive vice president of worldwide studio operations in an email to the Business Journal.
“It’s crucial to ensure they have the available stage space that’s necessary for them to create great stories and great content,” Dark said in the email.
Jeff Nagler, president of Warner Bros. worldwide studio operations, said the company was pleased to further its ongoing relationship with Jeff Worthe, president of Worthe Real Estate Group, and his team.
“We’re excited for this opportunity to utilize the best-in-class Ranch property that the Worthe Group is creating over the next few years,” Nagler said in a statement. “Continuing to enhance our state-of-the-art studios and full-service offerings for our productions and partners is a key priority for our company, and the new Ranch Lot development will certainly fulfill this goal in the Los Angeles area.”
In addition to the Ranch Lot project, Worthe and Stockbridge are constructing the Second Century project at nearby Burbank Studios, former home to NBC and “The Tonight Show.”
The Second Century project consists of two Frank Gehry-designed buildings that will be fully leased to Warner Bros. when completed. The 800,000-square-foot project is on schedule to be finished in two phases – one in May of next year and the second in May 2023, Worthe said.
“We are pretty far along,” he added.
‘Long-term lease’
Located a mile north of the studio’s main lot, the Warner Bros. Ranch houses the offices of both Warner Bros. Animation and The CW, its television network jointly owned with the CBS Entertainment Group unit of ViacomCBS.
Worthe will purchase the Ranch Lot from Warner Bros. in 2023, with a completion for the soundstages set for 2025. The entertainment company has already signed a lease with Worthe for the stages.
Worthe and Dark would not disclose how long the lease was for or its financial details. Worthe did state it was “a long-term lease.”
But according to a Los Angeles Times story, citing an industry expert familiar with the transaction but not authorized to discuss it, the lease is valued at more than $1 billion.
The 32-acre Ranch property site is fully entitled for the more than $500 million project.
“There are not a lot of sites of that size that are available anymore,” Worthe said.
The total square footage is 926,000 feet or about 10 percent lower than what he could build but the project pencils out better with the lower square footage, Worthe said.
“For Class A soundstages, things like a base camp area for the productions to set up outside the stages eats up part of the land,” he explained.
Soundstage space is at a premium these days in the Los Angeles area.
Worthe said it was because of streaming companies such as Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Netflix Inc. and HBO Max needing space to film their series.
Also with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a lot more attractive to film close to home, he said.
“A majority of the people in the production food chain are in and around Los Angeles,” Worthe added. “We are a primary location for all the folks who are involved with production, the post-production, the stage workers themselves.”
His firm is seeing a lot of second-tier studio soundstages built or repurposed from warehouse conversions, Worth continued, adding that some of the studios are using inferior stages but people are willing to work with what they can get.
For the Ranch Lot project, Warner Bros. was looking for state-of-the-art soundstages, he said.
“All 16 soundstages are going to be considered the best that are out there,” Worthe added.
‘Waltons’ site
Warner Bros. will add eight additional soundstages to its portfolio with the planned acquisition of Burbank Studios. Worthe will own the Second Century campus on the studio property, located between the Warner Bros. main studio lot and Walt Disney Co.
Altogether, including the Burbank Studios stages and the new ones at the Ranch Lot as well as the 32 at the 100-acre main studio lot, Warner Bros. will have 56 soundstages for film and television production.
“What it means is they have a state-of-the-art home for their productions and their partners’ productions for a very long time into the future,” Worthe said.
The Ranch Lot was first acquired and operated by Columbia Pictures – now owned by Sony Group Corp. – in 1934 until Warner Bros. took ownership of the property in 1990. The Ranch Lot has been home to decades of iconic productions, ranging from classics such as “Bewitched” and “The Waltons” to modern crime drama “Animal Kingdom” and fan favorite “Young Sheldon,” Warner Bros. said in a release.