One of Hollywood’s most historic studio lots is quietly becoming one of the industry’s most expensive cautionary tales.

The Radford Studio Center, the 55-acre production facility in Studio City that traces its roots to the silent film era and has hosted productions ranging from Gilligan’s Island and The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Seinfeld, is now being marketed for sale after Hackman Capital Partners defaulted on a $1.1 billion mortgage tied to the property.

The lot was turned over to lenders earlier this year, with Goldman Sachs leading the takeover and brokerage firm Eastdil Secured now tasked with shopping the asset to potential buyers.

Early indications suggest the price could land dramatically below what Hackman paid at the height of the streaming boom. According to research from Green Street and reported by The Real Deal, bids may come in around $450 million, a fraction of the $1.85 billion Hackman paid for the property in December 2021.

Some industry sources familiar with early discussions tell Stagerunner that offers could fall even lower, with numbers circulating below $400 million depending on market appetite and the structure of the deal.

If those estimates materialize, the transaction would represent one of the largest value resets in Hollywood studio real estate in recent years.

A Streaming-Era Bet Meets a New Reality

Hackman Capital Partners, led by Michael Hackman, spent much of the past decade assembling what became the largest independent studio portfolio in the world, betting that the explosion of streaming content would fuel long-term demand for soundstages.

The company ultimately amassed a network of 19 studio facilities with more than 145 active soundstages, including major properties such as The Culver Studios, Television City, Kaufman Astoria Studios and Silvercup Studios.

Radford was one of the crown jewels of that strategy.

The lot — originally built in 1928 and long known as CBS Studio Center — sits on nearly one million square feet of production and office space in the heart of the San Fernando Valley. When Hackman acquired the property from ViacomCBS in 2021, the firm also announced plans to invest another $1 billion in renovations and expansion.

But the economics that justified those investments have shifted sharply in the years since.

Production Slowdown Hits Studio Owners

The studio real estate sector has been under pressure following the 2023 writers and actors strikes, the global production slowdown, and the increasing movement of large-scale productions to lower-cost jurisdictions outside California.

According to loan documents tied to Radford, revenue from the property covered only about 21 percent of its debt service costs as of mid-2025, after rising interest rates pushed payments higher on the floating-rate mortgage.

At the same time, occupancy at the facility slipped.

Documents show the lot was about 63 percent leased, with 36 percent of existing leases scheduled to expire this year, creating additional uncertainty for lenders evaluating the asset.

FilmLA data has underscored the broader industry slowdown, with shooting days declining year-over-year throughout much of 2025 as studios trimmed production budgets and consolidated operations.

A Historic Lot With an Uncertain Future

Despite the financial headwinds, Radford remains one of the most recognizable production campuses in Los Angeles.

The lot played host to a long list of television classics including Seinfeld, American Gladiators, My Three Sons and Gunsmoke, and has served as a cornerstone of Studio City’s production ecosystem for nearly a century.

Paramount Global remains one of the property’s anchor tenants, occupying 150,000 square feet for KCAL-TV, KCBS-TV and the CBS News Bureau under a lease that runs through 2031.

Still, the looming sale highlights the changing economics of the studio business — particularly for owners who expanded aggressively during the streaming boom.

A Signal for the Studio Real Estate Market

The Radford situation is being closely watched across Hollywood’s production infrastructure sector, where studio campuses were once viewed as one of the safest bets during the streaming expansion.

Today, with interest rates higher, production volumes uneven and global competition intensifying, investors are reassessing the value of those assets.

For Hackman Capital Partners, the Radford default represents a rare setback for a company that built its reputation on studio real estate consolidation.

For the broader industry, the sale may offer a clearer signal of how the market now values large-scale production campuses in a post-streaming-boom environment.

And depending on where the bidding ultimately lands, the final price could reveal just how sharply Hollywood’s production real estate market has reset.