Netflix is reportedly close to closing one of the biggest Los Angeles studio real estate deals of the year. According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, the streaming giant is in talks to buy the historic Radford Studio Center for roughly 330 million dollars, a purchase that would give Netflix ownership of a major California production campus.
A source familiar with the deal described the agreement as all but done. If it closes, it will mark a turning point for Netflix’s physical footprint in Hollywood, and it will reshape the studio real estate map across Los Angeles.
What Netflix Is Actually Buying
The Radford Studio Center, located in Studio City, was previously known as the CBS Studio Center. It is a 55-acre lot, and it carries serious production capacity. The site includes 22 soundstages, three backlot sets, 18 office buildings, and 20 bungalows. For a company like Netflix, which produces hundreds of hours of original content every year, that kind of self-owned infrastructure is hard to replace.
Goldman Sachs took over the property earlier this year and put it up for sale. The first round of bidding, which started about two months before the Netflix talks, did not include other major studios. Most of those early offers came in below 300 million dollars and were submitted by entities looking for what one source called a generational discount on the property.
Netflix did not participate in that first round. It came in later, and it appears to have come in higher.
Why the Timing Matters
The deal lands at an unusual moment for Netflix. The company recently received a 2.8 billion dollar break-up fee tied to its abandoned pursuit of Warner Bros., which gives it a significant cash cushion to deploy into long-term assets. Buying a soundstage campus outright is exactly the kind of move that pays off over decades, not quarters.
Netflix has been steadily building out its physical production base for years. It already has the formerly-named ABQ Studios in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is investing roughly 1 billion dollars to build an East Coast production base at the former site of Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, although that facility is still a few years away from being ready.
Add Radford to that list, and Netflix would have one of the most diversified production real estate portfolios of any streamer. Owning the soundstages outright also helps with cost predictability. Renting space at major studios has gotten dramatically more expensive in the last five years, and the streaming wars have made stage availability tight.
The Hollywood Real Estate Story
The Radford deal is part of a wider re-pricing of studio real estate in Los Angeles. After the 2023 strikes and the broader contraction in scripted production, several large lots came onto the market or saw outside investors take ownership stakes. Goldman Sachs taking over Radford was one of those moves.
For Netflix, owning Radford could also fit alongside its existing footprint at Sunset and Raleigh studios, where the company has long-term arrangements that run into the early 2030s. By 2031, Netflix may be in a position to consolidate or reorganize its LA real estate around its own owned property, rather than depending on rentals.
That would also pair nicely with Netflix’s restored Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, giving the company a physical presence that ranges from a heritage venue to a working production campus to a worldwide office network.
What It Means for LA Production
If Netflix closes on Radford, it sends a clear signal to the rest of Hollywood: streamers are not retreating from Los Angeles, despite years of headlines about runaway production. Producers in Atlanta, Vancouver, and Albuquerque have absorbed huge amounts of what used to be LA-based work. Netflix planting a stake on a 55-acre Studio City lot suggests the company believes LA production capacity is going to be needed at scale for the long term.
That belief is also being reinforced by the upcoming wave of major events. The 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles and a 2026 World Cup hosting role across the LA region are both expected to drive spikes in production work, advertising spend, and content output. Owning the soundstage rather than renting it gives Netflix room to capture that demand without bidding against competitors for stage space.
For broader coverage of how studios, real estate firms, and city policy are interacting in LA, see our ongoing reporting in the California Business News section.
What Could Still Go Wrong
The deal is described as all but done, but no agreement is final until it is signed. Studio real estate transactions of this size carry their own complications. There are zoning questions, environmental reviews, and tenant agreements with productions currently using the lot. Any one of those could push the closing date back.
There is also the question of how Netflix would actually use the property. Some industry observers expect the company to operate it as a working studio first, while keeping the door open to future redevelopment. Others think the company might keep it primarily as a captive Netflix production base. Both options have tradeoffs.
The Bottom Line
If the 330 million dollar Radford deal closes, it will be one of the most consequential studio real estate transactions of 2026. It would give Netflix a level of LA infrastructure that no other pure streamer currently owns, and it would reset the conversation about whether Hollywood production has a long-term future inside the city limits.
For now, the deal is in the final stretch. The signal it sends is already loud. Stay close to our Business News coverage for updates as the transaction moves toward closing.
