Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO.
Reed Hastings
Co-founder and co-CEO at Netflix
Reed Hastings leads the firm that’s leading the streaming craze and the race for content creation space in Los Angeles.
The need to feed streaming services, such as Hastings’ Netflix, is driving demand and rent increases for studios and office space throughout the region, as consumers have been restricted to their homes at unprecedented levels. Netflix, alone, added a record 15.8 million new subscribers worldwide in the first three months of this year.
Hastings has no plans of changing its pre-pandemic office expectations once it’s safe to fully return. The CEO told The Wall Street Journal that he expects employees back in the office once a vaccine for the spreading coronavirus is available, and said working from home was a “pure negative.”
In the largest, new L.A.-area lease of the year, as of September, Netflix signed a 171,000-square-foot deal in the media hub of Burbank, near Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., for its first animation studio. Netflix leases 700,000 square feet of L.A. office properties from Hudson Pacific Properties, which helped the landlord secure a major joint venture with Blackstone.
And Netflix is propelling other tenants. LA North Studios, which provides soundstages, studios and other production services for clients like Netflix, just signed a major lease for 113,640 square feet in Santa Clarita, at the soon-to-be finished Needham Ranch.—G.C.
