ViacomCBS concludes sale of 55-acre Studio Center in $1.85 billion deal
Entertainment conglomerate, ViacomCBS is selling off its iconic 55-acre Studio Center in a $1.85 billion deal.
As part of the deal, CBS will also turn over its lucrative studio operations business which includes stage rentals, facilities management and production support services on the lot.
CFO Naveen Chopra said: “This sale is part of an ongoing optimization of ViacomCBS’s real estate and operations portfolio and will allow the company to redeploy capital to strategic growth priorities, including streaming.”
The CBS Studio Center property and its associated operating business is being acquired by a partnership formed by Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management. The deal is expected to close before the end of the year, subject to usual closing conditions including regulatory approval.
CBS Studio Center comprises more than 1 million square feet of space, including 22 stages, production office and support buildings, third-party tenant offices, a purpose-built broadcast center and filmable backlot locations.
The site also has about 210,000 square feet of production office space and its own mill to provide carpentry services, a paint shop, a commissary and a car wash. It has a backlot with a “Central Park” and a “New York Street” with 11 building fronts, including four brownstones. It also includes simulated residential neighborhoods with a hodgepodge of houses in different architectural styles.
The deal to sell CBS Studio Center comes after ViacomCBS in July sold CBS’s New York headquarters, the Black Rock skyscraper, for $760 million to real estate investment firm Harbor Group International. In 2018, CBS Corp. sold the Television City property in the Fairfax district to Hackman Capital for $750 million.
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