Bardas and Bain Capital gain OK for $450M studio complex in Hollywood

Bardas Investment Group and Bain Capital Real Estate were approved for plans to build a $450 million entertainment studios complex in Hollywood.

The West Hollywood- and Boston-based developers got the OK from the Los Angeles Planning Commission to build the 510,600-square-foot soundstage and office complex at 5601 Santa Monica Boulevard, Urbanize Los Angeles and the Commercial Observer reported.

The 5-acre studio complex would replace a former Sears department store. When it was announced in 2021, the estimated cost was $450 million.

The six-story project, dubbed Echelon Studios, would include 110,000 square feet of production studios and support facilities; 388,000 square feet of offices; 12,300 square feet of ground-floor restaurants; and an underground parking garage for 981 cars.

The production studios will include four 19,000-square-foot soundstages and one 15,000-square-foot flex stage. The offices would be built in two five-story towers joined with a bungalow village of executive and creative suites.

The 93-foot-tall project, designed by Rios of Leimert Park, includes glass offices resembling stacked clear Legos, with terrace decks, according to renderings.

Pending approval by the L.A. City Council, the studio complex could break ground this summer and be completed by the summer of 2026.

Bardas and Bain Capital bought the property in early 2021 for $81.9 million.

The joint venture, formed in 2019, aims to build more than 1 million square feet of new film studios. 

They include a $600 million, 620,000-square-foot studio campus at the historic Television Center about a mile away from the project on Santa Monica Boulevard, at 6311 Romaine Street, in Hollywood. Bardas and Bain bought the 6.5-acre site early last year for $135 million.

— Dana Bartholomew

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