Hackman Capital Partners is in more trouble, as the Los Angeles-based studio owner adds another nine-figure default to its roster.
Michael Hackman’s company defaulted on a $100 million loan on what once was its Sony Pictures Animation campus located in Culver City, which now faces foreclosure, according to a notice of default and election to sell under deed of trust dated early April. The lender claims an entity connected to Hackman owes about $101 million on the note that was originated by Goldman Sachs.
Hackman and Affinius Capital (once Square Mile Capital Management) purchased 9050 Washington Boulevard in January 2021 for $160 million. It is an Art Deco-style, three-building, roughly 200,000-square-foot creative office campus.
Sony Animation Pictures left Hackman’s spot in 2024 after being there for decades. The downtown Culver City campus appears to be completely vacant and looking for tenants, according to a lease offering viewed by The Real Deal. The debt amounts to roughly $500 per square foot, which not too many L.A. offices command these days, let alone empty ones. To compare, the Google-occupied Binoculars Building in Venice, which sold earlier this year, only went for around $500 per square foot. Meanwhile, talks are happening for the Brookfield-owned Wells Fargo Center North Tower — a 61 percent leased distressed office building in Downtown Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill — that would put a deal at about $130 per square foot.
The building at 9050 Washington Boulevard is near Culver Studios and Culver Steps, which Hackman and Affinius are shopping. Culver Steps is completely leased and counts Amazon Studios as an office tenant and cult-favorites such as Erewhon as retail tenants. It has a rumored price tag of $150 million, or more than $1,200 per square foot, which is very pricey, and an example that some offices can push past the new-normal of pricing seen post-pandemic.
The latest comes after a string of defaults. Hackman defaulted on a billion dollar mortgage on Radford Studio Center earlier this year, then lost it to a Goldman Sachs-led lending syndicate, which is now in talks with Netflix. More recently, a lender filed for foreclosure on the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens. The lender claimed a partnership tied to Hackman Capital owes about $359 million.
Hackman is the world’s largest independent studio owner, and his outfit also includes creative office space — sectors in Los Angeles that are not doing too well. Production has slowed after strikes, migrations to cheaper markets, media consolidation and a pullback in spending. L.A. film and television shoot days fell to a new low of less than 20,000 last year, per FilmLA.
Offices in parts of Los Angeles are still reeling from vacancies. That includes Culver City — which has a more than 30 percent vacancy rate, per Colliers data — even though it is a media and entertainment center.
Hackman, Affinius and Goldman Sachs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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