Lenders Set Nov. 24 Foreclosure Auction for Studio City's Radford Lot, Clearing a Path for Netflix

Goldman Sachs-led lenders seek about $1.3 billion for the 55-acre former CBS Studio Center, which Hackman Capital bought for $1.85 billion in 2021 and Netflix has been lined up to buy for about $400 million.

By Herald Staff · Nov. 11, 2026, 2:30 PM ET

Illustration of a historic studio lot street at golden hour, with a row of tan stucco soundstages with arched roofs and large sliding doors on the right, tall palm trees and parked golf carts along the street, and the San Fernando Valley foothills under an orange and violet sky. — Radford Studio Center, the 55-acre Studio City lot where "Seinfeld" and "Gilligan's Island" were filmed, is set to be sold at a foreclosure auction on Nov. 24.

STUDIO CITY — The 55-acre studio lot that gave Studio City its name is headed to a foreclosure auction later this month, a step that could finally let Netflix take over the historic property nearly five months after the streamer was reported to be under contract to buy it.

Lenders led by Goldman Sachs have scheduled a Nov. 24 trustee's sale of Radford Studio Center, the former CBS Studio Center on Radford Avenue, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported. According to a notice of trustee's sale recorded Oct. 28 in Los Angeles County, the lenders are seeking about $1.3 billion. First American Title Insurance Co., acting as trustee for Goldman Sachs Bank USA, is set to auction the property at 11 a.m. in the courtyard of the Civic Center Plaza in Pomona, though the date could be postponed. The sale would include the lot's fixtures, leases, rents and contracts along with the land.

The trade site The American Developer, citing The Registry, reported the same date and amount on Wednesday and noted that trustee's sales are often postponed or canceled, so the date is not firm until the day arrives.

Why Foreclose Now

Culver City-based Hackman Capital Partners, the owner, still holds title nearly 10 months after it told investors it would hand the lot back to its lenders. The Business Journal reported that the deal dragged on in part because Netflix did not want to buy the loan and go through foreclosure itself; instead, according to a source with knowledge of the deal, the streamer asked Goldman, as lead lender, to foreclose and pay the city's so-called mansion tax on the transfer.

Netflix's interest has been public for months. The Los Angeles Times reported in April that the company was negotiating to buy Radford for $330 million to $400 million, and in June Bloomberg reported that Netflix was under contract at a price close to $400 million, with closing expected in the third quarter. That quarter ended without a closing. Netflix wants to consolidate its Los Angeles real estate in one place and has considered moving from the Hollywood buildings it leases from Hudson Pacific Properties, whose leases run through 2031, according to that reporting.

From $1.85 Billion to a Fraction

Hackman and its partner, Affinius Capital, bought the lot from what was then ViacomCBS for about $1.85 billion in 2021, backed by a $1.1 billion loan from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo. About $395.2 million of that debt was later sold to bond investors, according to Morningstar Credit data cited by the Business Journal.

The bet soured as Los Angeles production slowed after the pandemic and the 2023 writers' and actors' strikes. Radford's net operating income fell to $15.6 million in 2025, compared with the $59.7 million projected when the loan was written, enough to cover only 19% of its debt payments, the Business Journal reported. Occupancy dropped to 42% at the end of 2025 before recovering to 71% in the first quarter of this year. The loan, first due in January 2024, was extended to June 9, 2025; Hackman did not repay it, and Goldman recorded a notice of default on Jan. 8 of this year claiming $1.2 billion.

If the lot sells for about $400 million, holders of the securitized slice of the loan could lose about $253 million, the Business Journal said.

The default also ended Hackman's plan for a roughly $1 billion renovation that would have made Radford the largest all-electric production facility in L.A. In February, The Real Deal reported that Goldman had hired Eastdil Secured to market the lot, and that Paramount still leases about 150,000 square feet there for KCAL-TV, KCBS-TV and the CBS News bureau under a lease running to 2031.

A Wider Studio Squeeze

Radford is not Hackman's only troubled lot. A Deutsche Bank-led group filed a notice of default in late June claiming more than $357 million on Television City, the 25-acre Fairfax District studio Hackman bought for $750 million in 2019, The Hollywood Reporter reported. The firm has also defaulted on about $258 million tied to Manhattan Beach Studios and on a $100 million loan backing a former Sony campus in Culver City, according to The Real Deal.

"We have a couple deals that we just made mistakes on, and we're going to lose a lot of money on those properties, but that happens," Michael Hackman said at a June industry conference, The Real Deal reported. "We've accepted it, and now we're moving on."

Founded in 1928 as a silent-movie lot, Radford has 22 soundstages and more than 1 million square feet of space, and it was home to "Gilligan's Island," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Seinfeld." Whoever ends up with the keys after Nov. 24, the price will be watched as a marker for what Los Angeles studio real estate is worth after the production slump.

Original reporting by The Los Angeles Herald, drawing on the Los Angeles Business Journal, The American Developer, the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, The Real Deal and The Hollywood Reporter, as linked above.