The new Hollywood upgrade
Hollywood is getting a serious glow-up, and it’s giving major old-school cinema energy. Commercial real estate developer David Simon is dropping a massive $450 million to build Echelon Studios Hollywood, a new production campus located right on Santa Monica Boulevard. The site, which used to be a Sears, is being transformed into a 600,000-square-foot facility that lowkey feels like a classic studio lot, just redesigned to fit vertically.
The specs
Fitting a 10-acre studio footprint onto a 5-acre lot was no small feat, but architect Andrew Wright of RIOS managed it by building up. The campus features four massive 18,000-square-foot soundstages with 40-foot ceilings, plus a 14,000-square-foot flex stage.
One of the main challenges was noise control. Since the design includes parking for nearly 1,000 cars sitting directly under the stages, the team had to use heavy-duty insulation, drywall, and thick concrete to keep things soundproof. The aesthetic highlight? A rooftop cluster of private bungalows surrounding a 25,000-square-foot elevated courtyard that offers straight-up iconic views of the Hollywood sign, the Griffith Observatory, and downtown Los Angeles.
Why it matters
Simon, who started planning the project five years ago under his firm BARDAS Investment Group, believes the local production scene is ready for a comeback. He told the LA Times, “Hollywood is the greatest brand in the world. It’s not only a place, it’s an industry.” With new state and potential federal tax credits on the table, the hope is to bring more filming back home to the city. The studio is set to open early next year, and it’s already generating buzz with potential tenants touring the site located between Netflix and Paramount Studios.
