The former NBC Studios, in what TV host Johnny Carson used to call “beautiful downtown Burbank,” has sold for $375 million to a local developer who previously owned the property and plans to add more soundstages to the legendary lot. Worthe Real Estate Group and partners bought the 27-acre film and television production facility now known as Burbank Studios from Warner Bros. Discovery after a complicated $1-billion series of transactions over several years that allowed Warner Bros.
to expand its Burbank headquarters. Burbank Studios already has eight soundstages, production and creative office space with a combined total of 685,000 square feet. Warner Bros.
has agreed to remain on the lot as a tenant. Positioned along West Alameda Avenue, Burbank Studios is the former headquarters of NBC Entertainment and the TV home to such talk show giants as Carson and Jay Leno. Although dozens of new soundstages have been built or planned in the Los Angeles region in recent years, there is room for more in Burbank, said Jeff Worthe, president of Worthe Real Estate Group.
“There have been a fair amount of stages built in the market, but maybe not all in the right location and maybe not all to the right standards that operators would like,” Worthe said. His company plans to add five soundstages ranging from 18,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet as part of a roughly $100-million first phase of improvements, he said. The studio is also approved for an additional 400,000 square feet.
