Disney’s Century City Exit Leaves Vacancy for Murdoch’s Fox

Century City’s status as a bright spot in the generally dim commercial real estate market in Los Angeles will get a test as it prepares for the departure of Disney from the campus that gives the district its name.

Rupert Murdoch and son Lachlan will face the challenge of filling a hole at 10201 West Pico Boulevard left by the biggest tenant in a rental operation that takes in as much as $50 million from tenants, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The pending vacancy is the result of Walt Disney Company’s $71.3 billion acquisition of Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox in 2019. The deal called for Murdoch and his Fox Corporation to keep the Fox Studio lot, with Disney committed as a tenant for a minimum of seven years. That kept the campus full in the shadow of the office towers that have thrived on law firms and financial outfits while downtown Los Angeles has shriveled in recent years.

Disney has indicated it will move out when the seven-year minimum term is up next March.

The Fox lot was the genesis of Century City, with the office high-rise towers, a sprinkling of low-rise condos and the Westfield Century City mall growing around the operation over decades.

More recently, the globally renowned Reuben family took over the Fairfield Century Plaza development, which has brought a second hotel and two high-rise towers to the district.

Murdoch will face a challenge in filling the studio lot, where marquee films such as “The Sound of Music” were made and the writers for “The Simpsons” still work. The media mogul retained Fox Sports and Fox News when it sold off 20th Century Fox, and those entities occupy some space at the lot.

Fox is headed up by Lachlan Murdoch, the eldest son of Rupert. The company has been working on a $1.5 billion plan to add sound stages and other features to the Century City lot.

Disney, meanwhile, has been consolidating its Los Angeles-area operations to its corporate base of Burbank, where it operates its own studio lot along with TV studios for its ABC network and its animation unit.