Venable represented ViacomCBS in its $1.85 billion sale of the historic CBS Studio Center located in Studio City, California to Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management. The deal represents one of the largest real estate transactions for the sale of a production studio complex in the United States.
The property sits on a 55-acre site in Studio City and consists of over 1 million square feet of space, including 22 stages, a production office and support buildings, third-party tenant offices, a purpose-built broadcast center, and filmable backlot locations.
At closing, CBS Broadcasting entered into a long-term lease-back of the Broadcast Center, which is home to television stations CBS 2 and KCAL 9. ViacomCBS continues to occupy stages and produce content on the lot and entered into a short-term lease-back of certain portions of the property in order to continue the production of certain shows at the property and to manage the transition of ViacomCBS employees to other locations.
The Venable team included Mitch Evall and Andrew Schmerzler, as well as Harry Atlas, Taylor Bleistein, Patrick Boynton, Sarah Brooks, Jennifer Cappelletty, Brian Clark, Chris Davidson, Mike Davis, Delilah Dawit, Andrew Dickson, Geoff Etnire, Paul Feinstein, Jordan Ferguson, Nick Jacobus, John Mavretich, Greg Matisoff, Dawn McCauley, Nick Reiter, Juiiana Reno, Ron Taylor, and Shannon Yates.
The deal was covered by the Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, and Variety, among other publications.