Univision Agrees to Lease New Hughes Center Office Complex

As had been rumored for months, Spanish-language television giant Univision Communications Inc. has agreed to lease a custom-built office and broadcast complex next to its facility at the Howard Hughes Center along the San Diego Freeway in Westchester.

Univision will expand and relocate from the approximately 65,000 square feet of office and studio space it has outgrown at the Hughes Center’s focal 16-story office building, to a 159,000-square-foot building scheduled for completion in mid-2001.

Neither Univision nor the new facility’s developer, Brentwood-based real estate investment trust Arden Realty, would disclose financial details of the transaction. But real estate sources who have been following the deal calculated that the assumed 20-year lease could be valued at $100 million or more.

Representatives of Univision and Arden, the 70-acre Hughes Center’s principal owner, spent most of two years hammering out the deal for the new “build-to-suit” development designed by Santa Monica-based Gensler.

Mike DeSantis of Cushman Realty Corp. negotiated the deal on Univision’s behalf. The Los Angeles Mayor’s Business Team and Councilwoman Ruth Galanter also helped facilitate the deal.

The new five-story Univision building will feature a television studio and an adjacent parking garage as well as fiber-optic cable linkage between the existing building at 6701 Center Drive and the future facility 300 yards away.

“This is a complex transaction that took a lot of creative thinking on both sides,” said Victor Coleman, Arden’s president and chief operating officer.

Univision operates the Univision Television Network, the nation’s most-watched Spanish-language network. It also owns and operates many of the affiliated stations around the country, along with other holdings.

Corporate headquarters are in Century City, but much of the network’s operations are a few miles south at Howard Hughes Center. The company’s stock price has jumped from less than $27.50 a year ago to nearly $90 late last month. Shares closed Monday at $87.25, down $1.06 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Brentwood-based Lowe Enterprises will manage development of the Univision building on Arden’s behalf.