Minskoff Equities defaults on Playa Vista office with $271M debt

Edward J. Minskoff Equities has defaulted on an office complex in Playa Vista, owing $271 million in unpaid debt, The Real Deal has learned.

EJM Equities defaulted on a $250 million loan tied to The Bluffs from Morgan Stanley, which served the firm with a notice of default last month, records show. The principal on the loan came due in November. 

“The Bluffs is a great property and there are no plans to hand the keys back,” Minskoff said in an email in October, adding the loan was performing at the time. He did not respond to a request for comment regarding the notice of default. 

Under California rules, a foreclosure on the property can be scheduled no earlier than Sept. 12. 

EJM Equities bought The Bluffs from JPMorgan Chase for $413 million in 2016, using a loan from Morgan Stanley, which was upsized a few years later, records show. The 500,000-square-foot, two building-complex is located at 12121 and 12181 Bluff Creek Drive. 

Fox Interactive Media took up almost all of the property when Minskoff bought it, until the lease expired in 2021. Google signed a roughly 52,000-square-foot lease at the property in 2022. 

However, more than half of the property is available for lease, according to listings on LoopNet. About 213,000 square feet out of the 249,000-square-foot East building is on the market. 

In October, data from CoStar provided to TRD showed the campus was about 70 percent vacant. 

Playa Vista once had the reputation as a tech hub — earning the moniker Silicon Beach — attracting startups looking to relocate from Silicon Valley and tech giants that wanted an L.A. anchor. Google, Snap, Tinder and Twitter all occupied thousands of square feet at one point, though many have chosen to shed space over the last few years. 

Almost 40 percent of all office space in Playa Vista and Marina del Rey was available in the second quarter, according to a Savills report. Most of that vacancy stems from tenants leaving big blocks of space, which are hard to fill or divide, according to sources familiar with the market.