The 22-acre Manhattan Beach Studios campus, where crews filmed the Avatar sequels and The Mandalorian, is being marketed to defense and aerospace investors after owner Hackman Capital Partners defaulted on its loan.

Brokerage Cushman & Wakefield is shopping a $240 million loan on the property, backed by Deutsche Bank, to buyers who could foreclose and convert the site from soundstages to advanced manufacturing, the Los Angeles Times reported in July. The LA Business Journal first reported the defense-hub pitch on Monday, Aug. 3. Marketing materials describe the campus at 1600 Rosecrans Ave. as having "significant available power capacity" and sitting on "some of the most irreplaceable underlying land in the South Bay."

The pitch leans heavily on location. The studio sits at the geographic center of the South Bay aerospace corridor, bordered by El Segundo and LAX to the north, Hawthorne to the east, and Redondo Beach to the south. Northrop Grumman operates sites in Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, and El Segundo. SpaceX is headquartered in Hawthorne. Of 50 hard-tech companies identified across Southern California, 30 are in the South Bay, according to an industry analysis.

What zoning allows

Manhattan Beach's Industrial Park zoning district, which governs the Rosecrans Corridor, already permits research and development by right and allows laboratories with a use permit. The city's zoning code lists "Industry, Custom and General" and "Industry, Limited" as recognized use classifications in the district, according to city zoning records.

A full conversion to aerospace manufacturing would likely require a use permit from the Manhattan Beach Planning Commission, because the change would intensify operations and increase parking demand beyond what film production generates. No application has been filed. No city council hearing is scheduled.

The Manhattan Beach Community Development Department did not respond to a request for comment on what specific approvals a conversion would require.

A broader collapse

The default is part of a wave hitting Hackman Capital's studio portfolio. The Real Deal reported in July that Hackman owes approximately $258 million on the Manhattan Beach property, a figure that includes accrued interest on the $240 million loan now being marketed. Hackman also faces a $357 million default on Television City and a $100 million default on a former Sony campus in Culver City. Radford Studio Center is in escrow for sale to Netflix at roughly $400 million after Hackman defaulted on a $1.1 billion mortgage there.

"We have a couple deals that we just made mistakes on, and we're going to lose a lot of money on those properties, but that happens," CEO Michael Hackman said at a June 2026 conference at the Lot at Formosa in West Hollywood, before the Television City default notice was filed. It is unclear which specific properties he was referring to.

The Hollywood production downturn driving the distress includes the COVID-19 shutdown, the 2023 writers' and actors' strikes, media consolidation, and a steady migration of film work to Georgia and New Mexico.

What's next

No buyer for the distressed loan has been publicly identified. The sale process is active, with no reported timeline for resolution. If a buyer forecloses and seeks to change the site's use, the Manhattan Beach Planning Commission and City Council would both have a role in reviewing the proposal.

The campus comprises 685,000 square feet across 15 sound stages and 300,000 square feet of office space, less than four miles from LAX. Built in 1999 for the Roy E. Disney family, it sold to the Carlyle Group for $150 million in 2007 and to Hackman Capital for $650 million in 2019.