Video game publisher Nexon inks lease in El Segundo

Video game publisher Nexon America is leaving Starwood’s PCT complex for a standalone office less than two miles away.

The company signed a nine-year, 49,000-square-foot lease at 621 Hawaii Street, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. The property includes a backyard, patios, video streaming rooms, video editing suites, and a 15,000-square-foot gaming area.

The new office will be the company’s headquarters. It’s unclear how much square footage the company leased at PCT. The company laid off an undisclosed number of employees in February — up to a fifth of its workforce — according to sources cited by gamesindustry.biz.

Nexon’s new landlord is Montana Avenue Capital Partners, a Santa Monica-based firm. Montana renovated the 53-year-old building as a creative office.

El Segundo is already a video game industry hub in L.A., but the industry is primed to expand even more there. The city itself is redeveloping the Smoky Hollow neighborhood to attract more tech companies. Nantworks, a company owned by L.A. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, announced it was opening a high-tech complex near the Times’ new office that will host e-sports events. 

Nexon America, the U.S. subsidiary of South Korean video game publisher Nexon Co., sublet the two floors it rented at PCT, formerly known as Pacific Corporate Towers, which is also in El Segundo. The sublease was to a hair styling company Bellami Hair and an Australian company called Computershare.

WeWork signed a 75,000-square-foot lease at PCT in June. Starwood paid $605.5 million for the three-building complex in November 2017.  [LABJ] – Dennis Lynch