Value-add eyed in latest deal for Burbank media space

Montana Avenue Capital Partners has acquired a Burbank media production and office campus for $24 million.

The Sawtelle-based firm plans to renovate the property and rebrand it as The Foundry, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. The plan for the makeover includes new outdoor amenity spaces and general upgrades.

The campus comprises six buildings at 2435-2449 N. Naomi Street, not far from the Hollywood Burbank Airport and Interstate 5.

The complex totals 60,177 square feet and includes creative suites, editing bays, production office, recording studios, and an event space.

Burbank was the tightest office market in the L.A. area in the third quarter with a vacancy rate of 7.4 percent. Rents for Class A properties were up 57 cents to $4.32 per square foot in the third quarter.

Demand has been strong in the city largely because of Burbank’s media production base. The city is home or close to some of L.A.’s largest studios and plenty of smaller studio-office properties such as the Naomi Street property.

This year has seen a series of large deals close for offices and production-related properties. Earlier this month, Brookfield agreed to buy the DreamWorks Animation headquarters for $327 million.

UBS Realty Investors closed L.A. County’s biggest office trade of the third quarter when they sold a 234,000-square-foot office complex less than a mile from the Naomi Street for $106 million last month.

A 95,000-square-foot post-production complex about two miles away sold in September for $37.4 million.

In May, Pendulum Property Partners bought a 125,000-square-foot office complex — mostly leased to production-related tenants — from Fortress Investment Group and Ocean West Capital Partners for $61.5 million.

Clarion Partners and Cityview recently touted Burbank as the “media capital of the world,” after buying a 276-unit apartment complex on N. Buena Vista Street for $161 million. They plan to renovate the complex and reposition it as a luxury building.

[LABJ] — Dennis Lynch