Newmark Knight Frank Completes $290M Sale of DreamWorks Animation Headquarters
By Alison Stateman November 24, 2017 9:00 am
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Newmark (NMRK) Knight Frank completed the $290 million sale of DreamWorks Animation’s Headquarters and Studio Campus, a 460,000-square-foot creative office campus in Glendale, CA, Commercial Observer has learned. The property is 100 percent triple-net leased through 2035 to DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.
NKF’s Capital Markets President, West Coast Kevin Shannon, Executive Managing Director Ken White and Managing Director Laura Stumm, represented the seller, the GC Net Lease (Glendale) Investors, an entity of Griffin Capital Company, a privately held, Los Angeles-headquartered investment and asset management company.
Griffin Capital acquired the property in July 2015 for $215 million prior to the acquisition of DreamWorks by Comcast Corporation in August 2016. The buyer, LA Hana OW, an entity of Seoul-based Hana Asset Management and Los Angeles-headquartered Ocean West, was self-represented.
NKF Capital Executive Managing Director David Milestone and Managing Director Brett Green arranged the financing on behalf of the buyer.
Hana Asset Management Co., Ltd., the largest financial group in Korea, and Ocean West partnered earlier this year to buy the NASA headquarters at Two Independence Square in Washington, D.C. in a deal valued at nearly $360 million in July.
“Asian capital loves the gateway markets of Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. A big Korean company making a big bet in Los Angeles is further evidence of that trend,” Shannon told CO. “Content creation in entertainment are huge in LA and so studios have gotten very popular. Capital loves that story right now. Capital loves that script.”
The appeal of a long-term single tenant in a lease deal of its size—a rarity in the LA market—was also part of the draw according to Shannon.
“You’ve got a low interest rate environment, you’ve got capital that wants to be in gateway markets, you’ve got an entertainment studio asset, it all came together and it was an exciting execution. Those trends are all good for selling product right now.”
Built in 1997 and situated on approximately 15 acres at 1000 Flower Street, the iconic DreamWorks Animation Studios includes five buildings. The Mediterranean-styled campus features landscaped courtyards, a manmade river, library, fitness center, and screening room, among other amenities.
DreamWorks Animation Studios, located within the Media District, is home to a concentration of major studio production headquarters, entertainment and media focused companies including Disney/ABC and Warner Bros.
