By MARK BARNA and MARK R. MADLER Staff Reporters With one large office tower project already under construction, the makeover of the Media District in Burbank continued with the announcement of NBC Universal selling off much of its long-time studio complex there. When the studio departs so will the familiar line of tourists outside waiting for entry to tapings of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” NBC will move its KNBC and KVEA news operations and “Access Hollywood” from the Burbank studio to a new, state of the art facility to be constructed near a Red Line Metro stop in Universal City. The move is expected to take place in 2011. “The Tonight Show” will move to a refurbished Studio One on the Universal Studios lot after Conan O’Brien replaces Leno as host in 2009. Much still has to be decided about the future of the 34-acre studio complex but Burbank Mayor Marsha Ramos expects the look and feel of the site will change. “It is an opportunity for another large media player to come in there,” Ramos said. “The industry changes so quickly there is a need for that kind of space.” Ricard B. Kern, regional president of LNR Property Corp. in Woodland Hills, is confident that the city will be OK. “As companies come and go, properties recycle and it all turns better in the long run,” Kern said. The impending sale of the studio site follows by two years the sale by NBC of a 9-acre parcel across the street to developer M. David Paul who is constructing an office tower complex named The Point. Both properties fall into an area controlled by a development agreement placing restrictions on its use for media-related purposes. It is not expected the city needs to give its approval on a new owner for the studio property. The company’s strategy is to sell a major portion of the studio lot and then lease back certain facilities to keep a production presence in Burbank for several more years. The new West Coast News Headquarters and Content Center will include a five-story studio complex, two multi-story towers, retail space and three parking garages. Raffi D. Krikorian, president of the Investment Real Estate Associates in Sherman Oaks, said traffic won’t be an issue because of the considerations NBC and the project planner, Thomas Properties, are making to contend with traffic. Marty Shelton, a commercial broker of NAI Capital, which has an office in Encino, seconded Krikorian. Shelton, on the board of directors for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, has listened to numerous presentations by NBC and Thomas Properties about the mixed-use project, which plans to include retail, restaurants, homes and apartments. “We have seen their presentation of widening Barham Boulevard, creating better on and off freeway ramps, mass transit” and multiple uses for parking space, Shelton said. “What they are proposing is a good concept,” Shelton continued. “People can live and work within the same radius. If you have residential in that area and provide jobs in that area, people can use the shuttle or bike or walk to work and not have to get on the freeway.” In another development involving NBC, The Financial Times reported that its parent company General Electric has held off on a decision to sell the entertainment unit until after the 2008 Beijing Olympics. NBC has been the subject of sale rumors because it did not fit with the rest of GE’s financial and industrial businesses, the Financial Times said.
