HBO Picks $350M Culver City Project for New HQ

Ivy Station office building. Rendering courtesy of Lowe

HBO will lease the entire 240,000-square-foot office building underway within the $350 million Ivy Station mixed-use development in Culver City, Calif., for its new corporate headquarters. The premium cable network will move from its longtime home in Santa Monica, Calif., in early 2021.

Lowe, AECOM-Canyon Partners and Rockwood Capital are developing the 500,000-square-foot Ivy Station. Construction of the development adjacent to the Culver City station along the Los Angeles Metro Expo light rail line began in August 2017 and is expected to be completed by mid-2020.

In addition to the five-story office building, Ivy Station will feature 200 apartments, 50,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurant space, a 148-key boutique hotel, 2 acres of public open space and 1,500 below-grade parking spaces—300 spots will be designated for riders of the rail line. Bounded by Venice, National and Washington boulevards, most of the development is located in Culver City with a small portion of the property in Los Angeles.

The building will feature large flexible floor plates, abundant natural light, operable windows and outdoor balconies. The transit-oriented development was designed in a contemporary style with mid-rise buildings and will provide multiple view corridors.

The office component was designed by Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects. Designs for the apartments and hotel as well as the master plan for the 5.2-acre site were created by KFA Architecture. CBRE Vice Chairmen Jeff Pion and Matthew Hargrove represented Ivy Station and HBO in the transaction.

“HBO is an ideal business anchor for Ivy Station, bringing to the property creative professionals that will enjoy access to public transit, host out of town guests at the hotel and frequent the shops and restaurants that will populate the ground-floor town square-style retail space,” Tom Wulf, executive vice president at Lowe, said in a prepared statement.

Hot submarket

The longtime home of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Culver City has recently become a hot submarket for other tech, media and entertainment companies. Amazon Studios moved into the historic Culver Studios in 2018 and also took 75,000 square feet at the new Culver Steps development, according to the Los Angeles Times. Also last year, Variety reported Apple was taking space in a new four-story, 128,000 square-foot project Lincoln Property Co. is developing at Washington and National boulevards. Apple took the space after HBO declined to lease there.

In January, Google signed a 14-year lease for space at the former Westside Pavilion mall that Hudson Pacific Properties and Macerich are redeveloping into a 584,000-square-foot office campus called One Westside. While the property is in West Los Angeles, it is close to Culver City.

Properties are also being sold in Culver City, with Alexandria Real Estate Equities purchasing a 75,941-square-foot creative office campus at 6100-6160 Bristol Parkway for $39.2 million from a partnership of The Swig Co. and Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. The joint venture paid $20.2 million for the asset in 2014 when it purchased it from EverWest Real Estate Partners, according to Yardi Matrix data.