Apple has been boosting its original content and now it’s looking for space to match in Los Angeles.
The tech giant told developers it could be interested in taking a lease for a production campus of around 500,000 square feet, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The firm launched AppleTV+ streaming platform in late 2019 and produces several original shows. The company is making a push with film and TV deals as it competes with streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.
Apple’s L.A. office footprint is centered on Culver City, where in 2018 the company signed a lease for a 128,000-square-foot complex developed by LPC West and Clarion Partners. That office is now set to be AppleTV+ headquarters.
Late last year, Apple leased a square block of office and warehouse properties next door. And in May, the company said it aimed to employ around 3,000 people at its Culver City properties. That came months after Apple TV+ leased about 90,000 square feet of space at a new soundstage and production facility at Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York City.
In L.A. over the last several years, production and related office space has become a white-hot commodity.
Large local firms like Hackman Capital Partners and Hudson Pacific Properties are the most active developers, but smaller firms and companies from outside Southern California have moved to cash in as well.
Bain Capital is partnering with West Hollywood-based Bardas Investment Group to build a $450 million production and office complex at a defunct Sears store in Hollywood.
In Downtown L.A., Atlas Capital Group wants to turn the former Los Angeles Times printing plant into a 26-acre soundstage complex. And East End Capital wants to develop a production studio nearby in the Arts District.
[WSJ] — Dennis Lynch