Real estate titan Sam Zell will soon sell the storied 10.5-acre Tribune Studios in Hollywood for $130 million to Los Angeles-based Hudson Capital LLC, a private equity real estate house, according to sources familiar with the transaction, the Slatin Report said.
The closely watched sale is the first disposition of real estate for Tribune Co. under its new owner, Sam Zell.
It is the second studio buy in five months for Victor Coleman, managing partner at Hudson, who was known for years as Chairman Richard Ziman’s sidekick at the old Los Angeles-based Arden Realty Inc., the public REIT. Arden was acquired by Trizec and GE in 2005, and Trizec was then acquired by Brookfield Properties (nyse: BPO) in 2006.
Only last September, Coleman and Hudson Capital grabbed the 16-acre Sunset-Gower Studio lot (the old Columbia Pictures studio), in a $200 million transaction.
Coleman declined to comment yesterday, saying “in one or two days I can talk.” Cushman & Wakefield was retained last year to shop the Tribune lot, also on Sunset Boulevard.
Some observers regarded Coleman’s second act — the buying of the Tribune studios, known locally for its KTLA-5 television broadcasts as brilliantly written, both for short-term operational reasons, and as a long-term land banking play.
