East End Studios Lands $130 Million in Loans to Make It Happen
Set in the heart of the Los Angeles Eastside, East End Studios – Mission Campus is just part of a $1 billion, three-segment project the developer has planned for Hollywood’s entertainment industry expansion in Boyle Heights, the Eastside and nearby Glendale.
By TONY CASTRO
Boyle Heights Studios. If you don’t believe it, say it a second time. It’s not some vato loco dream. It’s not a Cheech Marin “Up In Smoke” comedy follow-up. The only thing smoking here is the deal.
It’s Tinseltown coming to the Los Angeles Eastside under plans by New York-based East End Studios to build what eventually will be a $1 billion Hollywood entertainment industry expansion in Boyle Heights, the Arts District, and into nearby Glendale.
Boyle Heights Studios alone will include a 250,000-square-foot film studio east of downtown Los Angeles — featuring five soundstages totaling 100,000 square feet, plus 150,000 square feet of post-production facilities, offices, “talent suites” and a commissary.
It will be called the East End Studios – Mission Campus near the Arts District.
“Jonathon K. Yormak of East End Capital, in collaboration with Greg Grant of CBRE, has successfully secured $130 million in construction financing for the development of East End Studios – Mission Campus,” the company announced last week. “The project is on schedule for completion by the end of the upcoming year and will enhance the film and media production capabilities in Downtown Los Angeles.”
Yormak, co-founder and managing principal of East End Capital, said he still saw tremendous entertainment production potential in Los Angeles beyond just Hollywood.
“Wshile Los Angeles is the most expansive and diverse production market in the world,” he said, “it remains under-supplied with modern purpose-built stages and fully integrated campuses.”
According to Grant, despite a challenging capital markets environment for the real estate industry at large at the moment, let alone for an asset class as specialized as production studios, securing a sizable financing was made possible through “East Ends’ commitment to the project and its understanding of Downtown L.A.”
“[East Ends’] expertise and familiarity with the studio ecosystem in Los Angeles is what allowed us to capitalize this project,” Grant told the Commercial Observer.
“When people think about production studios in L.A., they naturally think about Hollywood, but in reality there’s quite a few spread around the city, including Downtown.
“Building in the Arts District also allows East End to take advantage of everything else being created here, leveraging its restaurants and other amenities.
“At the end of the day, our lenders saw through the uncertainty and have an incredible amount of conviction in this project and in East End.”
But there is more. East End Studios is just one of a $1 billion, three-segment project the developer has planned for Hollywood’s entertainment industry in Los Angeles Eastside and nearby Glendale.
Those plans call for a 15-acre studio project on East 6th Street, between Alameda and Mills streets to be called the ADLA Campus and include 16 soundstages and more than 330,000 square feet of offices and support facilities.
When completed next year, the ADLA Campus beneath the Sixth Street bridge will be among the largest independent studio campuses in the state.
East End Capital has unveiled the look of its proposed 410,000-square-foot studio campus on 9 acres south of the 134 freeway in Glendale. The East End Studios San Fernando Campus would include 10 soundstages, plus 165,000 square feet of offices and support facilities.
East End Studios, a unit of the New York-based investor East End Capital, landed $130 million in new construction financing to build the East End Studios Mission Campus at 2233-2241 Jesse Street, in Boyle Heights.
The East End Studios in Boyle Heights and adjoining areas will be similar in size and scope to an entertainment facility that East End Studios began building in Queens New York last year.
The $130 million in senior and mezzanine loans were provided by Arkansas-based Centennial Bank and Monroe Capital, based in Chicago. The rest of the funds needed for the $230 million project will come from East End Capital.
It is the combination of a three-year project that effectively puts film and television production in the heart of the Los Angeles Eastside.
In 2021, East End bought the warehouse leased to Glacier Cold Storage next to the Sixth Street bridge for an undisclosed price.
East End then filed plans to convert the warehouse into a 237,000-square-foot production studio, adding 90,000 square feet to build out four soundstages, offices and storage.
Then in June 2022, East End Capital bought two warehouses in the Arts District for $240 million, with plans to build a studio at 1338 East 6th Street and 1321 Wholesale Street.
A couple of months later, the developer unveiled plans to raze the warehouses and replace them with a 720,400-square-foot entertainment complex.
Boyle Heights Studios… yeah, believe it.
TONY CASTRO, the former award-winning Los Angeles columnist and author of “Chicano Power” (E.P. Dutton, 1974), is a writer-at-large with LAMonthly.org. “Chicano Power” will be republished in a 50th anniversary edition in late 2024. He can be reached at tony@tonycastro.com.
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East End Capital’s Jonathon Yormak with a rendering of plans for East End Studios at 2233-2241 Jesse Street in the Eastside of Los Angeles.
Photo courtesy of East End Capital
