Emerson to relocate its film, TV program to Hollywood
Emerson College, seeking to upgrade its film and television training center, is relocating the program to Hollywood from Burbank.
The Boston-based school, known for its communications and acting curriculum, will build a facility on the former Tribune Studios lot in Hollywood to teach and house the 95 Emerson students who pass through its Los Angles Center program each semester.
The property, which also houses KTLA-TV Channel 5, is part of a larger site that was sold for $125 million in January by Tribune Co., the Chicago-based owner of the Los Angeles Times, to Hudson Capital, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm. The school spent $12 million last month for the 37,244-square-foot property, known as Parking Lot B, at Sunset Boulevard and Gordon Street.
The Los Angeles Center funnels Emerson students from the main Boston campus through professional media internships while also offering regular academic classes. More than 3,000 Emerson alumni, including talk show host Jay Leno, actor Denis Leary and cosmetics entrepreneur Bobbi Brown, live in L.A.
Although well-known film schools at USC, UCLA and Chapman University already dominate film education in the area, Emerson officials said they hoped a permanent location in the physical -- if not metaphorical -- epicenter of Hollywood would boost the school’s profile, in addition to improving access for students.
“We’re already competing quite well with schools across the country,” said spokesman David Rosen. “The reason for this center is not to attract new students, it’s to better serve the students already here.”
The training program currently runs out of a rented space on West Alameda Avenue in Burbank. Students are housed in the nearby Oakwood apartment complex on Barham Boulevard.
School officials spent about two years scouting for property around Hollywood, and then negotiated several months for the lot, said Emerson President Jackie Liebergott. Before construction begins, planners must work through city permits and design proposals.
Plans for the facility, to be paid for partly through “hefty fundraising,” are reminiscent of Emerson’s move in the 1990s from suburban to downtown Boston, which helped revitalize the city’s theater district, Liebergott said.
“We’re a small school, but we have an unusually significant impact on the industry,” Rosen said. “And now, we’ll have an even greater impact.”
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