Imax to Expand, Relocate to Santa Monica Warehouse

Imax Corp., a Canadian company that makes giant-screen theater projection and sound systems (and produces films for them), will expand and consolidate its local operations by taking over a long-vacant Santa Monica warehouse that had been slated for demolition.

Imax’s move--along with other companies’ ongoing searches for appropriate digs--seems to indicate that demand from media and entertainment businesses for Westside space remains strong amid a rather tight supply.

The Toronto-based company’s local offices in Brentwood and post-production operations in Culver City will move to a to-be-renovated industrial building on Exposition Boulevard within the media-oriented Lantana Center complex, longtime home of post-production house Todd-AO.

Executives of publicly traded Imax were seeking a building they could occupy within a year and were drawn to Santa Monica’s amenities and accessibility, said Matthew Miller, principal in Cresa Partners real estate brokerage, who negotiated the $45-million renovation and lease deal on Imax’s behalf.

Lantana’s new owner, an affiliate of Houston-based Hines real estate group, had planned to demolish the building at 3301 Exposition Blvd. and build an office building on its site as part of its plan to upgrade the Lantana property, Miller said. But he and his client realized that the property was about the only appropriate building in Santa Monica that Imax could renovate and occupy within a year, he said.

Imax has leased the building for 13 years and will handle the bulk of the renovation work, including the addition of a mezzanine level, to increase the building’s floor space to about 65,000 square feet, Miller said. It will be designed by the Los Angeles office of HLK International.

Miller declined to provide additional financial details, but said Executive Vice President Doug Holte negotiated the transaction in-house for Hines. Hines also is planning to begin construction soon of a three-story office building on Olympic Boulevard in Santa Monica.

Imax is known for its educational films that are shown at museums and science centers, such as the California Science Center in Exposition Park, but has been pushing into more commercial locations as films such as “Everest” and “T-Rex” demonstrate the format’s profit potential for more mainstream filmmakers.

In fact, Walt Disney Co. will launch its much-anticipated “Fantasia 2000” exclusively through Imax theaters in January, before moving to the standard 35-millimeter format.

Imax theaters now number nearly 200 in 25 countries, with 80 more in 15 other countries on the way. An Imax theater is planned for the entertainment center under development at the Howard Hughes Center in Westchester.