Live Nation’s Beverly Hills headquarters building sold
The Beverly Hills headquarters building of Live Nation Entertainment Inc., the world’s largest concert promoter, was sold by former entertainment mogul Michael Ovitz to a New York landlord for $20 million.
Tishman Speyer bought the renovated industrial building near City Hall from Ovitz and his partners. The property at 9348 Civic Center Drive was built in 1925 as an ice and cold storage plant and is still known as the Ice House. It was converted into offices in the mid-1990s.
Live Nation, which merged with rival Ticketmaster last year, has been the main tenant in the four-story Ice House since 2006 and plans to stay there until at least 2020, according to real estate data provider CoStar.
Tishman Speyer’s purchase of the Ice House expands the company’s holdings in Beverly Hills, where it caters to the entertainment industry. Tenants such as Castle Rock Entertainment, Starz and Netflix are in buildings that Tishman Speyer owns nearby on Maple Drive.
The company bought the former headquarters of Hilton Hotels Corp. next door to the Ice House on Civic Center Drive in January. Tishman is spending about $23 million to modernize the two adjoining granite-clad Hilton buildings completed in 1985.
“We have confidence in the long-term strength of the market in Beverly Hills and elsewhere in Los Angeles, and we have assembled a group of attractive, strategically-located office properties that appeal to high-end users,” said Mark Laderman, Tishman’s regional managing director.
Ovitz’s partnership Beverly Hills Ice House Investment bought the Ice House for $3.3 million in 1993, according to public documents compiled by DataQuick.
• Sundance office moving to Miracle Mile
Actor and director Robert Redford has agreed to move the California office of his Sundance Institute a short distance from Beverly Hills to the Variety Building in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles.
The Sundance Institute, a nonprofit organization founded by Redford to discover and support independent film and theater artists, has leased the eighth floor of 5900 Wilshire Blvd., a high-rise across the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
“As our year-round programs continue to grow, we needed more space and an open, creative environment that could adapt to our needs,” said Keri Putnam, executive director of the institute.
Financial terms of the 10-year lease for 14,279 square feet were not disclosed, but landlord Ratkovich Co. asks for rents of $2.75 to $2.95 per square foot per month for space in the building, CoStar said.
Improvements to the new space will begin immediately to prepare for Sundance’s move in the winter. The institute now occupies 10,300 feet in a Wilshire Boulevard building just east of La Cienega Boulevard, CoStar said.
The institute’s new home will be a 30-story tower designed by noted Los Angeles architect William Pereira and completed in 1971 that had fallen out of favor with tenants before Los Angeles developer Wayne Ratkovich bought it in 2005.
Ratkovich, who has renovated several historic Los Angeles-area properties, including the landmark Deco-style Wiltern theater and the elaborately decorated Fine Arts Building, spent more than $34 million restoring and improving Pereira’s modern-style tower.
Tenants include Variety magazine and its parent company Reed Business Information, broadcaster 100.3 the Sound and Los Angeles magazine.
• Industrial buildings’ asking rents rise
Rents for industrial buildings such as warehouses in Los Angeles and Orange counties ticked up since the end of the second quarter, while rents for Inland Empire industrial buildings have increased for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2007, real estate brokers said.
“The steady improvement in lease rates is a good indicator that industrial property values may be on their way up throughout Southern California,” said Jerry Holdner of Voit Real Estate Services Inc. “While 2010 proved to be a stabilizing year, most market support indicators have turned positive in 2011.”
Average asking rents in the beginning of the third quarter were 55 cents per square foot per month in Los Angeles County, 53 cents in Orange County and 35 cents in the Inland Empire, Voit said.
