Netflix buying Radford: what it means for Studio City
Studio City · Neighborhood news
The short answer
Netflix is under contract to buy Radford Studio Center, the 55-acre Studio City lot, for a reported 400 million dollars, roughly a fifth of its 2021 price. Bloomberg reported the signed contract on June 18, 2026, with a close expected in the third quarter. As of late September 2026 there has been no public confirmation that the sale has closed. Goldman Sachs controls the property after the previous owner defaulted. If it closes, it would be Netflix's first owned studio campus in Los Angeles.
Drive down Radford Avenue in the last six months and you can tell something is shifting at the lot. The neon-trimmed signage that for decades read CBS Studio Center, and more recently Radford Studio Center, has been quieter than usual. Lights still on. Trucks still moving. Anyone who has lived in Studio City long enough to read this neighborhood the way you read a familiar face can tell when the energy on a property changes.
That energy has been changing for a while, and it is about to change a good deal more.
After months of reporting from The Hollywood Reporter, the Los Angeles Times, and Bloomberg, the picture firmed up in mid-June. Netflix is under contract to buy the 55-acre Radford Studio Center for a reported 400 million dollars, after earlier reporting had put the figure closer to 330 million. Goldman Sachs is on the sell side. Bloomberg reported the signed contract on June 18, 2026, with the transaction expected to close in the third quarter, and neither Netflix nor Goldman Sachs has issued a detailed public statement on terms. Hackman Capital Partners, the previous owner, has declined to comment.
As of late September 2026 there has been no public confirmation that the sale has closed. So there is not a completed deal yet. What there is, is a signed contract and a fairly clear picture of what it would mean for this neighborhood once it lands. Debbie Pisaro has sold Studio City homes for 24 years from four blocks away, and that picture is worth walking through, because the lot at 4024 Radford Avenue has been the single most important piece of real estate in Studio City since before there was a Studio City.
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Join the Just Studio City list or call (310) 362-6429A short history of the lot that named the neighborhood
In May 1928, a silent-film comedy producer named Mack Sennett, the man behind the Keystone Cops and an early platform for Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, opened a brand-new studio on what was then a stretch of San Fernando Valley lettuce fields at Ventura Boulevard and Radford Avenue. The studio was so consequential to the surrounding development that the area around it took on a nickname that stuck: Studio City.
That is not metaphor. That is literally how the neighborhood got its name.
Sennett went bankrupt in the Depression. The lot passed to Mascot Pictures, then Republic Pictures, which spent the 1940s making B-movies and Westerns for Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and a young John Wayne. By the 1950s and 1960s, with film giving way to television, CBS leased the property and then bought it outright in 1967 for 9.5 million dollars. The list of shows that came out of those soundstages over the next half-century is staggering: Gunsmoke, Gilligan's Island, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bob Newhart, St. Elsewhere, and Seinfeld, which built its New York Street backlot on the property in 1994 and shot most of nine seasons on Stage 9. Then came 3rd Rock from the Sun, Will and Grace, Malcolm in the Middle, That 70s Show, Parks and Recreation, and Big Brother, which still shoots on Stage 18, along with The Talk, Entertainment Tonight, and SEAL Team.
In 2021, ViacomCBS, now Paramount Skydance, sold the property to Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital for about 1.85 billion dollars, in what was at the time the largest studio real estate transaction in Los Angeles history. Hackman announced ambitious plans for a 1 billion dollar modernization, including new all-electric soundstages, a resurrected Ventura Boulevard entrance at Carpenter Avenue, and a new bridge over the Tujunga Wash at Moorpark that would close a longstanding gap in the LA River Greenway.
That plan ran into the headwinds every Studio City resident has watched: a writers' strike, an actors' strike, and runaway production fleeing California for Atlanta, Toronto, and London. By January of this year, Hackman had defaulted on a 1.1 billion dollar mortgage. Lenders led by Goldman Sachs took over the property, which was about 71 percent leased as of March. The first round of bids reportedly came in under 300 million dollars. Netflix did not participate in that round. It came in later, and apparently decisively.
Why Netflix is buying
This is where the strategic logic gets interesting, because it says something about how Netflix thinks about Los Angeles.
Netflix is famously asset-light. The company has historically rented its production space rather than owning it. Its primary Los Angeles footprint has been a long-term lease at Sunset Bronson Studios in Hollywood, an arrangement with Hudson Pacific Properties that is now nearing the end of its 10-year run. The company also leases stages in Brooklyn, the United Kingdom, and Spain, and owns a single major studio campus in Albuquerque plus a build-out underway at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey.
Buying Radford would be the first time Netflix owns a major studio property in Los Angeles. Twenty-two soundstages. About 484,000 square feet of production office space. Three backlots: the New York Street, the Central Park area, and the Residential Street. A permanent home in the city where most of its top creative talent already lives.
The timing is the part worth noticing. Netflix spent the winter trying to buy Warner Bros., and lost it. In February 2026 Warner Bros. Discovery's board judged a raised bid from Paramount Skydance superior, Netflix declined to match, and Paramount took the prize. That is a company that tried to buy a very large amount of production capacity and did not get it. Six weeks later it was in talks for a Los Angeles lot of its own. Owning Radford does not replace a studio conglomerate, but it does put stages, offices, and backlots on Netflix's own balance sheet in the city where it makes things.
For a neighborhood that has spent the last three years watching production walk out the door, that is a meaningful shift. It is the kind of long-term commitment Studio City has been quietly worrying about losing.
Off-market
A large share of the best Studio City houses trade quietly, before they ever reach the open market. Debbie keeps a running list of pocket listings for buyers who want the first look.
See the pocket listingsWhat it could mean for the neighborhood
Nobody has a crystal ball for a deal that has not closed. Still, Debbie Pisaro lives four blocks from this lot and has watched what happens around it for 24 years, and a few things are worth paying attention to in the months ahead.
Employment and traffic. Radford has historically employed thousands of crew members, post-production workers, drivers, caterers, security, and administrative staff, many of whom live in Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Toluca Lake, North Hollywood, and Burbank. A serious Netflix presence would stabilize that workforce. It would also keep Radford Avenue, Colfax Avenue, and Ventura Boulevard as the daily migration corridors they have been for half a century. The traffic does not go away, but the rhythm becomes predictable again.
The blocks closest to the gate. A few residential pockets sit close enough to feel this directly. Colfax Meadows, with its big unsidewalked lots and its own orchard-era history, runs along the lot's western edge. The Grove, a tiny enclave of very few homes tucked right against the studio fence, is about as close as any house in Studio City gets to Radford Avenue. Up in the hills to the south, the Studio City Hills watch the lot from a distance, the way most of the neighborhood does, in a mixture of noted architectural houses and ordinary post-and-beam homes that have nothing to do with the lot's history but everything to do with the neighborhood's character. Whatever Netflix keeps or changes, these are the streets that will feel it first.
The redevelopment plan. Hackman's billion-dollar Radford Studio Center Plan, approved at the city level in 2024, is the active entitlement attached to this property. A new owner can revise it, accelerate it, or sit on it. The publicly interesting elements, including the new Carpenter Avenue gate, the LA River Greenway bridge, the all-electric stages, and the preservation of the Mack Sennett Building and Stages 9 and 10, were the reasons the Studio City Neighborhood Council and the Conservancy supported the plan in the first place. Whether Netflix maintains those community-facing commitments is the single most important local question of this transaction. It also bears directly on the homes nearest the lot, including those along the Carpenter Avenue boundary.
The Tujunga Wash bridge in particular. Right now the LA River Greenway, that 51-mile bike and pedestrian path, dead-ends at Radford because there is no crossing of the Tujunga Wash at Moorpark. The Hackman plan included a new bridge that would have closed that gap and let cyclists and pedestrians complete the route. Studio City has wanted that bridge for a generation. If Netflix carries it forward, that is a quiet civic win no streaming-business reporter will write about, and it changes how the neighborhood works.
The 1928 buildings. Two of the original soundstages on the lot date to Mack Sennett's first year, and the Sennett Bungalow is still standing. These structures are not formal Historic-Cultural Monuments yet, but they are the architectural origin point of the neighborhood. Any owner, Netflix or otherwise, needs to be in conversation with the community about what happens to them. The Brady Bunch House just earned its Historic-Cultural Monument designation for being culturally significant, and the deeper story of the streets around the lot runs through Debbie's work on California architectural homes. The literal building that named the city deserves at least the same thought.
The texture of Studio City itself. A studio lot is not a passive land use. It shapes lunch traffic at Aroma and the neighborhood cafes. It fills the parking lots of Trader Joe's and the Sportsmen's Lodge. It accounts for the steady stream of crew vans on Laurel Canyon at 5 a.m. and the late-night taco runs. It is why the corridor has so many costume shops, prop houses, and dry cleaners that handle wardrobe. A vibrant studio at full operating capacity is the heartbeat of the commercial corridor, while a diminished studio would be a slow leak. The neighborhood has been holding its breath for a couple of years now. A Netflix purchase, once it closes, would let it breathe again.
What the Radford sale could mean for Studio City home values
This is the question Studio City owners ask Debbie most, so here is the direct answer: a deal like this does not move your home's value overnight, but it shapes the trajectory.
Home values in a neighborhood like Studio City rest on the things that make people want to live here, and a fully operating studio under a committed long-term owner reinforces most of them. It keeps thousands of well-paid creative and crew jobs anchored within a short commute. It keeps the commercial corridor along Ventura Boulevard busy. It protects the very identity that lets Studio City command a premium over comparable Valley neighborhoods. A shuttered or hollowed-out lot, by contrast, would chip away at all of that, slowly and quietly.
That said, a headline is a blunt instrument for pricing a specific home. The effect of the Radford deal on a house near the Carpenter Avenue gate is different from its effect on a hillside home in Fryman Canyon or a place near Footbridge Square, and each of those is smaller than the effect of your home's own condition, submarket, and pricing. Debbie maps all of those pockets on the Studio City neighborhoods page, so the comparison starts at the level of the block rather than the zip code.
If you are weighing a move, the live market data in the Studio City market report is a better starting point than any single news story, what you would actually net on a sale matters more than the macro narrative, and the transfer-tax math under Measure ULA in Studio City can move the number more than the Radford headline will. For the bigger picture, Debbie's work as the Studio City agent who covers this beat and her read on the best time to sell a home in Studio City lay out how she reads a market like this one.
What we do not know yet
The contract is signed, but as of late September 2026 the deal has not been publicly confirmed as closed. The final price could still move. The terms, including what Netflix keeps, what gets leased back, what gets redeveloped, and what happens to the long-term broadcast leases on the property, all remain to be reported once the sale is final. The neighborhood is going to learn a lot more before the year is out.
What is clear is that the most consequential 55 acres in Studio City is changing hands again, almost a hundred years to the month after Mack Sennett opened the gates. The neighborhood survived every previous owner, and it will survive this one too. The open question is what shape it takes on the other side.
Frequently asked questions
Is Netflix buying Radford Studio Center?
Netflix is under contract to buy Radford Studio Center, the 55-acre lot in Studio City. Bloomberg reported the signed contract on June 18, 2026, with a close expected in the third quarter. As of late September 2026 there has been no public confirmation that the sale has closed, and terms could still change.
How much is Netflix paying for Radford Studio Center?
The reported figure is about 400 million dollars, after earlier reporting put it nearer 330 million. Either way it is a fraction of the roughly 1.85 billion dollars Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital paid in 2021. The exact price has not been publicly confirmed by either party.
Has the Netflix Radford deal closed yet?
Not as far as anyone has said publicly. The signed contract was reported on June 18, 2026 with a third-quarter close expected, and as of late September there has been no announcement confirming completion. Neither Netflix nor Goldman Sachs has issued a detailed public statement on the terms.
Why is Radford Studio Center being sold?
Hackman Capital Partners defaulted on a 1.1 billion dollar mortgage in January 2026 after a stretch of strikes and runaway production weakened the studio business. Lenders led by Goldman Sachs took control of the property and put it up for sale, which is how Netflix entered the picture.
Why does Netflix want to own a Los Angeles studio lot?
Netflix has historically leased its production space. Buying Radford would be its first owned major studio campus in Los Angeles, giving it 22 soundstages, roughly 484,000 square feet of production offices, and three backlots in the city where most of its creative talent lives. It also follows its failed run at Warner Bros.
Did Netflix buy Warner Bros.?
No. Netflix agreed to acquire Warner Bros. in December 2025, but in February 2026 the Warner Bros. Discovery board judged a raised all-cash bid from Paramount Skydance to be superior. Netflix declined to match it and withdrew. Paramount Skydance is the buyer, and that deal is still working through regulatory review.
Will the Netflix deal change Studio City home prices right away?
No. A headline about a lot changing hands does not reprice a block overnight. The deal is under contract rather than closed, and any effect on prices would show up gradually through jobs, the commercial corridor, and neighborhood confidence rather than in a single month. Your own home's condition, submarket, and pricing matter far more.
What would Netflix owning Radford mean for Studio City home values?
If the sale closes and Netflix runs Radford as a committed long-term owner, that supports the local economy, employment, and the commercial corridor that make Studio City desirable, all of which underpin home values over time. A diminished or shuttered lot would do the opposite. Nothing is guaranteed while the deal is still pending.
What happens to the Radford redevelopment plan?
Hackman's billion-dollar Radford Studio Center Plan was approved at the city level in 2024 and remains the active entitlement on the property. A new owner can revise it, accelerate it, or pause it. The community-facing pieces, including the Carpenter Avenue gate, the LA River Greenway bridge, and the all-electric stages, are what Studio City will watch most closely.
Why is it called Studio City?
The neighborhood takes its name from the studio at Ventura Boulevard and Radford Avenue that Mack Sennett opened in 1928. The area that developed around it became known as Studio City, so the Radford lot is literally the reason the neighborhood has the name it does today.
What shows were filmed at Radford Studio Center?
Across nearly a century the lot produced Gunsmoke, Gilligan's Island, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, St. Elsewhere, Seinfeld, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Will and Grace, Malcolm in the Middle, That 70s Show, Parks and Recreation, and Big Brother, among many others. Seinfeld built its New York Street backlot there in 1994.
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Written by Debbie Pisaro and Team. Debbie is a 24-year California agent and the founder of Coastline 840, DRE #01369110. She lives four blocks from the Radford lot and works every one of the ten Studio City micro-markets, with a focus on architectural, historic, and design-forward homes. For more on the streets around Radford, see her work as an architectural homes specialist or read the founding story at Coastline 840. Reporting on a pending transaction changes; confirm current details before relying on them. Coastline 840 · Studio City · DRE #01369110