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Rockefeller Center owner drops $24.5M on three Arts District properties

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Including the offices of futuristic tech startup Hyperloop One

In mid-October, The Real Deal reported that real estate corporation Tishman Speyer, the owner of New York’s Rockefeller Plaza, was in contract to purchase a large office complex in the Arts District. Now, the Los Angeles Times confirms that the $24.5-million deal went through Monday.

The three building, 1.7-acre campus is home right now to tech startup Hyperloop One. The company is one of several racing to develop a futuristic vacuum tube-based transit system that could one day transport passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than one hour.

A real estate broker who helped to arrange the deal tells the Times that Hyperloop will likely remain in its current location for now, but Tishman Speyer also hinted it might someday seek to expand the property.

The sellers of the complex, Lion Real Estate Group and developer Mark Borman, purchased the site in two separate transactions in 2014 and 2015, according to the Real Deal. After undertaking a major renovation, they’ve made off with a pretty nice profit on the property, for which they paid a total of $7.8 million.

Tishman Speyer has other LA area properties, but this is the first purchase the company has made in the Arts District. It’s yet another indication of the massive changes underway in the once-declining industrial center now emerging as a hub for creative professionals (some of whom could credibly be called artists, we guess).

Broker Jim Jacobsen tells the Times that the area could be further transformed by the arrival of Warner Music Group. The record label recently signed a lease at the historic Ford Factory building, and will relocate there from its Burbank offices in 2018.