Hollywood sci-fi lot pitched as site to make real space-age weapons

Skip to main content

Arrow-right

Camera

-->

Close

Color Scheme

Use system setting

Light theme

Dark theme

Subscribe now

Close

A SpaceX Falcon 9 reusable rocket booster on display outside the company’s facilities in Hawthorne, California. (Bloomberg)

Add Spokesman-Review on Google

John Gittelsohn

Bloomberg

Manhattan Beach Studios has been the site of filming for projects including "Stars Wars: The Mandalorian," a TV series about a heavily armed bounty hunter in a galaxy far, far away.

Now lenders who are selling the property’s $240 million mortgage are promoting the site to potential buyers as a hub for making real space-age weapons.

“The project is strategically positioned within Los Angeles’ prominent aerospace and innovation corridor, anchored by industry leaders such as Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Technologies and SpaceX,” said Cushman & Wakefield, which has the listing.

“A supply-demand imbalance has emerged, driven by the growing concentration of advanced manufacturing users and a limited supply of viable space,” the real estate brokerage said in a presentation. Bids are due July 28.

The marketing pitch reflects Southern California’s shifting economic landscape as the movie business slumps and weapons makers seek to cash in on surging Pentagon spending under President Donald Trump. The defense boom is spurring the revival of a regional industry that once churned out World War II bombers, supersonic Cold War planes and Apollo command and service modules before shrinking after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Manhattan Beach Studios, a 15-soundstage campus where productions have also included Lucasfilm’s "Obi-Wan Kenobi" and Marvel’s "The Avengers," sprawls across 22 acres in the heart of Los Angeles County’s South Bay region. Representatives of the movie lot’s lead lenders, Deutsche Bank AG and Kennedy Wilson, declined to comment.

The South Bay area has spawned more than 100 aerospace and defense technology firms, including Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. The studios are less than two miles from Los Angeles Air Force Base, where responsibilities include “developing, acquiring, equipping, fielding, and sustaining lethal and resilient space capabilities for warfighters.”

The site also comes with approximately 78 megawatts of available power capacity, a draw for manufacturers of products that depend increasingly on artificial intelligence.

“There’s never been a more perfect site for advanced manufacturing,” Kevin Donner, a broker with Cushman, said in an interview. “People have been tracking it for a long time.”

The land under the studios, which were built in 1999 for the Roy E. Disney family, has other potential development options. Housing is one: the average home in Manhattan Beach, a city of about 33,000, is valued at about $3.3 million, according to Zillow Group Inc.

Sports is another: Franchises including the NFL’s Chargers, the NBA’s Lakers and the NHL’s Kings have training facilities in neighboring El Segundo. Nearby Inglewood hosts SoFi Stadium, home to the Chargers and Rams, and the Intuit Dome, where the NBA’s Clippers play.

“Everyone looking at studios wants to see an alternative use,” Donner said.

Then there’s defense technology. Demand for so-called “hard tech” manufacturing space — rockets, drones, robots and other weaponry — has surged since the outbreak of wars in Ukraine and Iran, and with the proposed US defense budget soaring to $1.5 trillion. That’s also spurring the growth of other clusters of rocketry and defense from Washington state to Texas and Florida.

In the Los Angeles area, aerospace and defense-related tenants have accounted for 11% of new industrial real estate leases since the start of 2025, up from an annual average 2% during the preceding decade, according to a report this month by brokerage Newmark Group Inc. Since last year, aerospace companies have signed 15 leases for almost 4 million square feet , Newmark said.

“More government spending tends to lead to more contracts,” said Dain Fedora, Newmark’s head of research for the Southwestern US.

SpaceX still occupies 1 million square feet of manufacturing and engineering space in Hawthorne, near Los Angeles International Airport, even after Musk moved the company’s headquarters to Texas. The demand also extends south through Long Beach and into Orange County. Rocket Lab, Anduril Industries and Relativity Space have leased sites near Long Beach Airport, including hulking old aircraft factories.

Meanwhile, demand for Hollywood production space has waned, even as the state of California offers new tax incentives to woo back movie and TV shoots. Film and television production firms shed 42,000 California jobs from 2022 to 2024, a period when dual strikes by screen actors and script writers halted production.

Manhattan Beach Studios was part of a massive buying spree by Hackman Capital Partners that ran into trouble...