The William Morris Agency Inc. may get a new Beverly Hills headquarters, even as competing talent firms are pulling up stakes and leaving the city.
For decades Beverly Hills has been the Madison Avenue of talent agencies. But just as the advertising industry is leaving the famed New York strip, talent firms are fading from Beverly Hills.
Fighting that trend, the owner of an office building at Wilshire and Beverly boulevards filed plans last week to build William Morris a new 201,000-square-foot headquarters. The proposal calls for razing the office building’s parking garage to make way for the talent agency.
The building’s owner, a partnership of New York investment firm George Comfort & Sons Inc. and Morgan Stanley, is pitching the project to city officials as a way for Beverly Hills to keep William Morris, which has outgrown its El Camino Drive headquarters.
“I’m aware that a formal application was filed and one of the principal tenants is William Morris,” said Beverly Hills Mayor Stephen P. Webb. “From the city’s point of view, this is positive. We have been working very hard to keep William Morris as a Beverly Hills business.”
William Morris executives have been involved in planning and designing the new building, sources said. Without William Morris as the tenant, George Comfort & Sons executives have told Beverly Hills officials the project wouldn’t move forward.
“In my experience, you’re pretty far down the road when you start filing plans,” said Mark Robinson, a Studley corporate managing director. “You don’t just do this stuff willy-nilly.”
William Morris executives didn’t respond to requests seeking comment.
Steve Solomon, a spokesman for George Comfort & Sons, said a deal with William Morris is still being negotiated. “This deal hasn’t been signed,” he said. “Everybody hopes the deal goes through but until it does, we can’t comment.”
After Creative Artists Agency announced two years ago that the firm is relocating to Century City, elected officials in Beverly Hills have gone on the offensive to halt further talent agency defections.
While some firms, such as United Talent Agency Inc., have opted to stay put, others like International Creative Management Inc. are likely moving.
ICM is near a deal to take about five floors in Century City’s MGM tower. A 12-year lease in the building could be worth upwards of $55 million, according to sources close to the transaction. ICM spokesman David Shane said a deal hasn’t been signed.
