Radford Studio Center, the 55-acre Studio City lot that sold for $1.85bn in 2021, goes to a foreclosure auction in Pomona on 24 November, and Netflix is expected to emerge as its owner. The Hollywood Reporter, citing a notice recorded in Los Angeles County, reported the auction date on Wednesday 11 November and said Netflix was the anticipated top bidder.
The auction is the route out of a purchase that has dragged on since the spring. Netflix began talks in April with the Goldman Sachs-led lenders that took the lot from Hackman Capital Partners early this year, and has discussed paying as much as $400m. “The deal is progressing on the agreed upon timetable and with the agreed upon sets of milestone dates,” a Netflix spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
Key facts
- Property: Radford Studio Center, Studio City, Los Angeles; 55 acres and 22 stages, formerly CBS Studio Center
- Sale: foreclosure auction on 24 November in Pomona, according to a notice recorded in Los Angeles County
- Price: Netflix has discussed up to $400m, about 22% of the $1.85bn Hackman Capital Partners paid in 2021
- Debt: the Goldman Sachs-led lenders are seeking an estimated $1.3bn, roughly the debt tied to the lot
- Netflix: expected to be the top bidder; it says the deal is on its agreed timetable
Why an auction
A direct sale from the lenders was due to close earlier this year, but the deadline passed, and on 6 November The Hollywood Reporter described the bid as stalled. Netflix asked Goldman to handle the foreclosure and its costs and to facilitate a sale, according to a source quoted by the outlet. Buying the lot directly would have left Netflix to manage the foreclosure itself, with the delay and uncertainty that brings.
The same source cited Los Angeles’s so-called mansion tax, a 5.5% levy on property sales above $10.9m, which on a $400m deal could have come to about $22m. A second person familiar with the talks said there were reasons for the structure “that have nothing to do with taxation”.
An auction is open to all comers, and a rival bid from private equity or a property investor could still push the price above $400m. The Hollywood Reporter said few buyers were thought to have the appetite for a Los Angeles production campus while local filming hovers near historic lows, and it expects the final price to fall far short of the lenders’ $1.3bn. Deadline has put the defaulted loan at $1.1bn.
What changes for Netflix
Netflix has long been the anchor tenant at Sunset Studios in Hollywood, owned by Hudson Pacific Properties, where its leases on the ICON, EPIC and CUE buildings run to September 2031. It also shoots at Raleigh Studios. Owning Radford would let it gather production now scattered across the region and cut rent, though the lot cannot meet all of its office needs.
The landlord has been sceptical. On a 5 November earnings call, Hudson Pacific chief executive Victor Coleman said Netflix “had not closed the transaction”, Deadline reported, adding that it might close “sometime maybe later in the year, or not.” Outside California, Netflix has moved from renter to owner: it runs Netflix Studios Albuquerque in New Mexico and Netflix Studios Brooklyn, is building a campus at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and has Longcross Studios outside London.
Radford, once Republic Studios and later CBS Studio Center, is where Seinfeld, Gunsmoke and The Mary Tyler Moore Show were shot. Hackman bought it from ViacomCBS at the height of the streaming boom and planned a large redevelopment, which collapsed after Los Angeles production fell sharply from 2023.
Our reading
On the reported numbers, a historic Hollywood lot would change hands for under a quarter of its 2021 price and less than a third of the debt secured on it. That is the clearest price yet on the fall in demand for Los Angeles stage space, and it favours the rare buyer with a slate large enough to fill a lot of its own.
The pressure is not confined to California. UK film production spend fell 37% in the first nine months of 2026, and Ottawa has just set out how it will divide a C$600m ($425m) audiovisual package to keep Canadian production moving. Studio budgets are tight too: Skydance has warned that the Warner Bros. slate will cut fourth-quarter studio profit by up to $200m. Whether anyone bids against Netflix on 24 November will show how far stage property has repriced.