A year-and-a-half after the Los Angeles City Council approved an expansive development at Television City to modernize the studio, add sound stages and create more production space, the entire project is in jeopardy.

Hackman Capital Partners, which purchased the historic Television City property from CBS in 2018 for $750 million, is racking up debt and is at risk of losing the property to a consortium of lenders led by Deutsche Bank. Hackman Capital Partners previously defaulted on a $1.1 billion mortgage on Radford Studio Center in Studio City, which was taken over by lender Goldman Sachs and is now being sold to Netflix. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk confirmed a notice of default for the Television City property was filed on June 29 against Hackman Capital Partners and media reports have stated that a Deutsche Bank-led consortium has hired the commercial real estate firm CBRE to sell the Television property. A spokesman for CBRE said he was unable to provide a comment on the property and Deutsche Bank did not return a request for information by press time.

Representatives of Hackman Capital Partners also could not be reached for direct comment, but the company issued a statement citing challenges in the studio production industry. Hackman Capital Partners did not specifically address or acknowledge the potential sale of the Television City property.

“As an owner of studio assets in multiple U.S. and international markets, we have seen firsthand how Los Angeles studio real estate faces significant pressure from high production costs and uncompetitive tax incentives,” the statement read. “Television City is a local treasure, home to decades of iconic productions, and we remain in active discussions with our lending partners as we carefully evaluate all alternatives available for its future.”

The Television City 2050 project underwent five years of planning and revisions, including numerous public hearings and community meetings, before receiving approval from the Los Angeles City Council in January 2025. Hackman Capital Partners’ plan is to create 1,686,000 square feet of sound stages and production support space, including approximately 1,421,623 square feet of new construction. The studio’s iconic façade facing Beverly Boulevard was granted historic-cultural status by the city and was required to be retained.

The project was supported by many business organizations, residents and community groups including the Mid-City West Neighborhood Council, Park La Brea Residents Association, Fairfax Business Association and Melrose Business Improvement District. The plan also had numerous opponents including Caruso and The Grove, the A.F. Gilmore Company, which owns the Original Farmers Market, the Broadcast Center Apartments, the Beverly Fairfax Community Alliance, Save Beverly Fairfax, Miracle Mile Residential Association, Beverly Wilshire Homes Association and Neighbors for Responsible TVC Development. The primary concern was the size and scale of the project and impacts on the surrounding community. Some opponents said they questioned from the beginning whether such a large-scale project could succeed.

“I would say that we did not foresee Hackman’s financial implosion, but we knew the studio expansion was a pipe dream, and we said so from Day One,” said Shelley Wagers, formerly of the Neighbors for Responsible TVC Development and now of the Beverly Grove Neighborhood Association. “Hackman paid top dollar for Television City, and that was before COVID and the writers strike and actors strike and AI flipped the script. So by the time the public got a look at Hackman’s application to the city, it was very clear that Hackman would never renovate and expand Television City. They were just scooping up development entitlements to maximize the market value of the property.”

Other opponents, including the Save Beverly Fairfax, declined to comment because they are in litigation with Hackman Capital Partners over the project. Leo Daube, a spokesman for Los Angeles City Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky, 5th District, said the councilwoman is monitoring the situation but has no comment at this time. The councilwoman supported Hackman Capital Partners’ plan to bring more studio production jobs to the property, and is waiting to see how the current situation plays out.

Wagers added that it may present an opportunity to create affordable housing, given that the city is required to build housing under Senate Bill 79 and the 25-acre studio campus is located on the major corridors of Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. She said such a plan would have to be extensively vetted and her group would only support it with infrastructure improvements in the surrounding neighborhoods to accommodate an influx of new residents.

If the studio property is sold and a new owner decides to build a different type of project, they would be required to go back to the city for new reviews and approvals, which could take years. Some portions of the historic Television City property are required to be maintained no matter what is bult at the site, per the historic-cultural monument designation granted in 2018.

Any new project would have to preserve the iconic façade of the central office building and what is known as the viewshed along Beverly Boulevard, which gives the public 430 linear feet of unobstructed sightline to the main buildings.

“I think for us, it’s too soon to tell exactly what’s happening there,” said Adrian Scott Fine, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy, which worked with CBS Television and later Hackman Capital Partners to preserve the historic aspects of the property. “With historic places in general, they change ownership, stewardship changes. So we are always keeping places on our radar and certainly Television City is a really important place to Los Angeles, and so that’s why it was really important to secure protections. And those happen regardless of what ultimately happens with the ownership or any proposed changes that deviate from what was most recently proposed. That gives us comfort knowing that the protections are in place, but we are always monitoring and keeping ourselves aware of any changing circumstances.”