Investment firm King Street and Canadian pension fund Alberta Investment Management Corporation are out to tap into the booming demand for studio space in Los Angeles.
The firms have teamed up with an unnamed sovereign wealth fund and New York-based East End Capital’s studio platform to acquire and develop up to 750,000 square feet of production space across Los Angeles, according to a Wednesday announcement.
The joint venture will also focus on three of East End’s existing studio projects — two in Glendale and a third in Downtown Los Angeles, according to an announcement.
East End has already filed plans with the city to build two new soundstages at its existing studio campus in Glendale and convert a cold storage facility at 2233 Jesse Street near the Arts District into a 237,000-square-foot facility.
Outside of Los Angeles, the firms are targeting developments in “other major U.S. film hubs” and international markets, following Blackstone and Hudson Pacific’s move to build a $1 billion studio project outside of London.
King Street was attracted to the “supply-demand imbalance in the studio sector,” the firm’s David Walch said in a statement. More than 1.2 million square feet of studio space is currently under development in Los Angeles as of June, driven by a surging demand for content creation, according to CBRE data.