Hackman and Square Mile Bid $1.8B for CBS Sound Center

Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management LLC offered a bid of $1.8 billion for the purchase of the CBS Sound Center at 4024 Radford Ave. in Studio City. While the deal is not yet signed, the agreed-upon price was more than $500 million beyond the projected sale price.

CBS Studio Center includes 18 sound stages and more than 210,000 square feet of office space. The facility was the production home to classic television series including Gunsmoke, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Leave it to Beaver and Seinfeld, along with more recent programs including Big Brother and SEAL Team.

Studio production space has become a hot commodity in the entertainment industry, fueled largely by the deluge of new productions created for streaming services. Last week, private equity firm TPG paid $1.1 billion for the 56-stage Cinespace Studios in Chicago and Toronto. On Monday, Netflix announced it was renewing its contract with the Pinewood Group for the use of its Shepperton Studios outside London in a deal that will expand the facility by 1 million square feet of new production space.

For the past two years, CBS has been holding real estate clear-out sales. In 2019, CBS Corp. sold Television City in Los Angeles to Hackman Capital for $750 million and recently agreed to sell its Black Rock headquarters in New York City for $760 million to Harbor Group International.