Live Nation to expand its Beverly Hills headquarters
Live Nation Inc., the world’s largest concert promoter, will expand its Beverly Hills headquarters into the building next door.
The entertainment company, which already occupies a 1920s-era cold storage plant turned office building near City Hall, has agreed to rent 33,000 square feet in another former industrial building at 9350 Civic Center Drive.
The buildings date from a time when Beverly Hills still had a blue-collar business district, and they were updated more than a decade ago with designs by Los Angeles architect Barton Myers into offices intended to appeal to companies in creative fields.
“This is more than an office building conveniently close to our existing headquarters,” said John Ahrens, head of real estate at Live Nation. “It’s a cool building, with a historic feel and interesting architecture that complements the character of our current space.”
Both updated properties are near the former headquarters of Hilton Hotels Corp. in a neighborhood that has attracted a cluster of entertainment business, said real estate broker Michael Arnold of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, who represented Live Nation in negotiations for the 10-year lease.
Playboy Enterprises Inc., pay-TV company Starz and United Talent Agency are among the firms that have set up shop nearby, Arnold said.
Entertainment-related firms have been expanding more often in recent years than most other types of businesses, real estate broker Neil Resnick of Avison Young said.
“When the economy tends to be a little harder and more challenging, people look for forms of entertainment that are reasonably priced such as television, music and films,” Resnick said. “As a result, those industries are doing exceedingly well.”
The two-story building Live Nation will expand into was built in the mid-20th century as a warehouse with red brick walls and wooden bow-truss ceilings, he said, common features at the time that are now prized by creative tenants.
Resnick declined to identify his landlord client, but public records show the property is owned by a family trust.
Terms of the lease were not disclosed, but real estate experts familiar with Beverly Hills value the deal at about $17 million based on current market values.
The 2001 redesign by architect Myers added parking on the reenforced roof. Musical instrument maker Gibson Guitar Corp. is also a tenant in the building.
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