If Wayne Ratkovich isn’t the godfather of rehabbing L.A.’s old iconic buildings, he’s at least its uncle.
The 71-year-old developer has built his real estate portfolio by taking dilapidating buildings such as the Oviatt Building, the Wiltern Theatre and 5900 Wilshire Blvd. and turning them into hip offices or hangouts.
Now, his development company, Ratkovich Co., is about to complete its highest-profile project: converting the 11-building Howard Hughes headquarters, home of the Spruce Goose hangar, into a creative office campus for tech and media companies.
“If you are going to be successful as a developer, then you go where the market is and the market is media and tech, and it’s concentrated on the Westside of town,” he said.
The project, dubbed the Hercules Campus – a nod to the Spruce Goose’s official name – isn’t even completed yet, but it’s more than 60 percent leased to exactly the types of tenants targeted.
YouTube LLC signed up for 40,000 square feet of studio space. The internet video site plans to use the studio to hone the technical skills of its amateur channel developers.
Digital marketer EarthBound Media Group and ad firm 72andSunny also have taken space.
The complex’s previous owner, a joint venture of Tishman Speyer Properties and Walton Street Capital LLC, took a big loss on it three years ago. But Ratkovich, who bought it in 2010, feels he is benefiting from both timing and experience.
For example, when he bought the 32-story office building at 5900 Wilshire Blvd. in 2005, he hired L.A. architects Johnson Fain to redecorate the lobby and common areas with modern touches and a stylized red leather wall. That helped him secure entertainment business newspaper Variety and communications firm Edelman as anchor tenants.
In Playa Vista, he’s completely restoring the Howard Hughes historic structures that have been withering away. But it’s more than innovative interiors. The campus will be dog-friendly, and equipped for company barbeques and sporting events.
It also will likely have a rent-a-bike program so employees can travel the short distance to the ocean. Ratkovich hopes the program will help attract companies, though he was surprised that Google Inc. ultimately declined to take space at the property because it was not walking distance to the beach.
Ratkovich said there is no doubt this latest generation of tech firms is on the cutting edge of commercial real estate and business in general.
“It’s pretty clear that the tech firms are leading the field of office users and revolutionizing the way office space is used,” he said. “It’s a much more collaborative, open space. They discovered that if you have a task and goal to pursue, then you put two to three minds together and you can discover something wonderful. That’s how Apple and Google work.”
– Jacquelyn Ryan
