NBC, Developer Abandon Burbank Complex Plans

Citing poor economic conditions and tight credit, NBC and a development company have abandoned plans to build a $200-million office complex in Burbank’s Media District.

The failure to develop the proposed NBC Plaza strikes a blow to city plans to add entertainment-related development in the Media District. NBC Plaza was approved in March, 1991, and was to have included 18-story and 15-story office towers on a 4.4-acre lot adjacent to the network’s studios.

“It’s a shame that it’s a victim of hard times. I’m sorry to see this happen,” said Burbank City Manager Robert Ovrom, who plans to brief the City Council on the abandoned project tonight.

In a joint statement, NBC and Cushman Investment and Development Corp. announced last week that they could not find financing for the project.

“The economic aspects of new office development are simply no longer attractive for the necessary commitment of time and capital either for Cushman or NBC,” the companies’ statement said.

Under the plan, NBC employees would have occupied 100,000 square feet of office space and about 600,000 square feet would have been leased.

The site, now mainly used for parking, was sold for an undisclosed price to a newly formed New York company, Burbank Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of the Bank of New York, Ovrom said.

A spokesman for Burbank Holdings did not return phone calls. The company sent Ovrom a letter indicating that it may develop the site later after the office market improved.

“Burbank Holdings has expressed a desire to meet with us and see if there are permits that are going to expire,” Ovrom said. “They want to perpetuate the life of the project as far as city approval is concerned.”

NBC no longer has any involvement in the site, said Jack O’Neill, an NBC vice president. He said the company may be interested in renting office space there.

“The fact that Cushman and NBC have decided to no longer spend any time on it is in no way a reflection on the site. It’s a prime site,” O’Neill said. “I would recommend that any developer who wants to get something in the ground come and talk to NBC first.”

Ovrom said any office project there would probably be more marketable if it had an affiliation with NBC especially if the building had the entertainment company’s name “or the Peacock logo on the front.”

The demise of NBC Plaza is the second major office project in Burbank to fail to materialize recently for lack of funding. Last summer, investors pulled out of a $60-million office project adjacent to the Media City Center Mall in downtown Burbank.

At the time of its approval, city officials said NBC Plaza would be the focal point of the Media District, with extensive landscaping and features such as fountains and terraced pavilions.