Echelon Studios Hollywood builds $450m vertical movie studio
Echelon Studios Hollywood is a $450-million vertical movie studio currently under construction on a 5-acre site along Santa Monica Boulevard, set to open in early next year.
Building a Vertical Movie Studio Amid industry Contraction
At a time when news regarding the pace of film and television production remains persistently grim, real estate developer and landlord David Simon is pressing forward with a major capital investment. Construction is well underway on Echelon Studios Hollywood, an old-school movie studio featuring standard production amenities packed into a single multi-story building rather than sprawling across a traditional horizontal lot. Architect Andrew Wright of RIOS noted the intense spatial engineering required for the project, stating that the development represents a 10-acre movie studio shoehorned into a 5-acre site where everything is crammed as tight as it can possibly go.
Simon initiated the venture approximately five years ago during a period of surging demand for soundstages. At that time, deep-pocketed streaming operators like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple competed fiercely with legacy studio powers to scale up content libraries for home audiences. However, the current situation looks starkly different. Demand for physical film facilities in Southern California has dropped sharply as local production activity cools. In late July, the nonprofit FilmLA reported that feature film shoots decreased by 20% in the second quarter compared to the previous year. Concurrently, television production—long considered the financial backbone of Los Angeles entertainment operations—dropped by 30%.
Engineering Soundstages Above Parking Structures
Designing a facility that combines heavy industrial production spaces with dense urban infrastructure posed severe acoustic and logistical hurdles. Soundstages function as acoustically isolated boxes where adjacent vibrations threaten to compromise internal recordings. Because Echelon incorporates parking for more than 1,000 vehicles directly beneath and around the production areas, Andrew Wright and his engineering teams had to prioritize rigorous soundproofing to prevent vehicular noise or structural rumble from bleeding into the stages.
The resulting structure operates as a complex labyrinth connected by dedicated ramps, stairways, and elevators. This layout ensures that distinct functions operate independently. Visitors heading to the upper-level workspaces can access meetings via private elevators without cutting across active production floors or staging zones. Below the stages, the facility accommodates support functions including mill spaces for set construction, screening rooms, cafes, and dedicated “base camp” staging areas designed to handle production trucks, heavy equipment, and actor trailers.
The Neighborhood in the Sky and Market Realities
Crowning the multi-story structure is a landscaped warren of bungalows offering panoramic views of the Hollywood sign, the Griffith Observatory, and downtown Los Angeles. Simon insisted on incorporating these bungalows to replicate the authentic aesthetic and functional vibe of classic studio lots. Historically utilized as low-cost office and dressing spaces during early Hollywood history, bungalows eventually evolved into private sanctuaries for elite talent, writer-producers, and studio moguls. People grew deeply attached to them, transforming them into the most coveted real estate on a studio lot, according to Andrew Wright. Production teams valued occupying them for the duration of a multi-month shoot, inspiring the creation of this modern neighborhood in the sky.
Jamie Crosbie, a film and television executive appointed to head studio operations, acknowledged that the era of unlimited budgets and maximum streaming spend has officially closed. Yet, he maintains that the market correction has cleared the field and created openings for new operational models. Industry stakeholders are also eyeing potential legislative relief, pointing to expanded state tax credits and a pending 20% federal tax credit for domestic filming as catalysts that could spur renewed production interest in Southern California. As David Simon noted, industry professionals consistently express a strong preference to remain local rather than relocate productions outside the state.
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