Historic Spruce Goose Hangar Gets New Owner

PLAYA VISTA, CA-The hangar where Howard Hughes’ storied Spruce Goose wooden airplane was built has a new owner now that a joint venture of the Los Angeles-based Ratkovich Co. and Penwood Real Estate Investment Management have paid $32.4 million for 11 historic buildings totaling 537,130 square feet on four parcels of land totaling over 1.2 million square feet that includes the Spruce Goose hangar. The Ratkovich deal was one of three transactions totaling nearly $80 million that were brokered by the CB Richard Ellis team of CBRE’s Kevin Shannon, Scott Schumacher, Stan Gerlach, Bob Dubbins and Rob Waller at the Campus at Playa Vista, a nine-parcel 56.3-acre, West Los Angeles office development fully entitled for up to 1.7 million square feet of office and entertainment production space. CBRE represented Trigild Inc., the court-appointed receiver, on behalf of Key Bank and a consortium of lenders.

In one of the sales, Tishman purchased four of the nine parcels in the campus totaling 18.8 acres which are located adjacent to its recently completed four-building 325,000-square-foot, 7.7-acre, phase one development.

A 10.7-acre parcel which is entitled for up to approximately 550,000 of office/studio production support space sold to Lincoln Property Co. Lincoln is the developer of Horizon at Playa Vista, a newly completed 750,000-square-foot office project within the 1,087-acre master-planned Playa Vista mixed-use community.

Commenting on the deals, Shannon said, "Bidding interest clearly reflected the continued attraction of capital to the supply constrained Westside market, despite short term fundamental issues.”

The Ratkovich property will undergo $50 million worth of planned renovations that will tie the development together as “a single, cohesive campus of creative office and production space for tenants in the entertainment, media and technology industries,” according to an announcement by the new owners. Jeff Pion and Deron White at CB Richard Ellis will be the brokers representing this property.

All 11 buildings purchased by the Ratkovich Co. are considered historic landmarks and currently stand vacant, with the exception of the hangar, which is used as a production sound stage where films such as “The Aviator,” “Titanic,” “Avatar,” “Eagle Eye” and “Transformers” were filmed. The redevelopment will employ solar and fuel cell technology in pursuit of a long-term goal of taking the development entirely off the power grid, the new ownership says. The total project valuation for the property, to be called “The Hercules Campus at Playa Vista,” will be over $80 million.

Wayne Ratkovich, founder and president of the Ratkovich Co., describes the plans for the Hercules campus as “in keeping with our passion for the restoration of historic landmarks.” He estimates that the property will be tenant-ready in July 2011. The tentative project completion date is January 2012.

The project architect is Levin & Associates, whose restoration of historic projects includes Los Angeles’ City Hall, the Oviatt Building, the Wiltern Theatre, the Fine Arts Building, Grand Central Square, the Chapman Market, the Huntington Library, the Griffith Observatory and the Wilshire Boulevard Temple.