On the northwest corner of Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, a landmark that was listed for $45 million in May 2025 sold on September 29 for about $7 million. Across Beverly, Television City's lenders filed a notice of default in June and have reportedly put the 25-acre lot up for sale. Both properties also come with historic protections on the parts you see from the sidewalk, and no sale can remove them.
Nobody has announced what will go behind the Art Deco spire or behind the Television City facade. The city settled years ago that the spire and the facade stay.
A $45 million ask, a $7 million sale
The buyer of the Fairfax Theatre is the A.F. Gilmore Company, which owns the Original Farmers Market a few blocks south at Third and Fairfax. Beverly Press reported that the company bought the roughly 29,000-square-foot parcel on September 29 for $7 million. The Real Deal put the price at $7.2 million, and The Registry at $7.21 million. Depending on the outlet, that's a discount of 82 to 84 percent off the 2025 asking price.
The sale did not come quickly. According to The Real Deal, the property failed to find a buyer at auction the month before. Gilmore had been negotiating with the longtime owner over price for several years, and he had held the site since 1970. When Beverly Press covered the listing in May 2025, the $45 million figure covered a parcel that was mostly a vacant lot behind a standing wall.
As of Beverly Press's October 21 report, Gilmore had no plans or timeline to share. Ilysha Buss, the company's director of marketing, said details would come as they became available. The company's statement said it looks forward to "steering it to new, beneficial uses for the community."
What the 2021 landmark vote holds in place
To see what any future project at 7901 to 7909 Beverly has to keep, go back to 2010. The theater was built in 1929 and ran as a neighborhood movie house from 1930 until Regency Theatres closed it in 2010. A landmark application that year failed. In Beverly Press's 2021 account, it fell short because the auditorium had been subdivided and the application lacked historical detail.
The second attempt worked because of new research. Steven Luftman of Save Beverly Fairfax and the Art Deco Society documented the building's role in the Jewish community of the Fairfax District, where it hosted religious services and community meetings. The Los Angeles Conservancy describes the building's significance in four parts: its Art Deco design, its role in neighborhood development, its Jewish heritage, and its place in local performing arts. Its storefronts also served as a small commercial center for the neighborhood. The City Council adopted the building as Historic-Cultural Monument No. 1248 on December 7, 2021, according to the city's monument list.
The designation did not cancel what was already approved. The city had signed off on a six-story building with 71 apartments and ground-floor retail. Urbanize LA reported that the Howard Laks Architects design included about 10,780 square feet of commercial space and a 228-car underground garage. Under those approvals, the marquee, facade and spire had to be preserved. Demolition started in January 2024, Beverly Press reported that February. Crews took out the auditorium, the interior and the street-facing shops, and left the facade and tower standing. The apartment building never went up.
So the gutted shell that has stood at the corner since then is the part the landmark status protects. Beverly Press's October report says any future development must keep the facade, the marquee and the Art Deco spire.
Across Beverly, a lender-led sale on 25 acres
Television City has stood at Beverly and Fairfax since 1952. Hackman Capital Partners bought it from CBS in 2018 for $750 million. In January 2025, after five years of planning and public hearings, the City Council approved the company's TVC 2050 plan. It called for 1,686,000 square feet of soundstages and production space, about 1,421,623 square feet of it new construction.
On June 29, 2026, a notice of default was filed against the property. The Hollywood Reporter reported that a lender group led by Deutsche Bank had started a sale process, with more than $357 million owed according to the default notice. Hackman's statement to Beverly Press pointed to "high production costs and uncompetitive tax incentives" and said the company was in "active discussions with our lending partners." In its October 7 issue, The Hollywood Reporter still listed Television City among the Hackman studio properties "being shopped." The same piece reported that Radford Studio Center in Studio City, bought for nearly $2 billion in 2021, was heading to Netflix at about a fifth of that price.
Television City has its own fixed point, in place since 2018. Beverly Press reports that whatever is built there must keep the facade of the central office building and the viewshed along Beverly Boulevard. That gives the public 430 linear feet of unobstructed sightline to the main buildings. If a new owner proposed a different project, it would go back to the city for new reviews, which could take years. Adrian Scott Fine, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy, told the paper that those protections "happen regardless of what ultimately happens with the ownership."
| Fairfax Theatre | Television City | |
|---|---|---|
| Corner | Northwest, 7901 to 7909 Beverly Blvd | 7800 Beverly Blvd |
| Most recent price signal | About $7 million sale, Sept. 29, 2026, after a $45 million ask in May 2025 | Notice of default filed June 29, 2026; lenders reported to be seeking a buyer |
| Owner status | A.F. Gilmore Co., new owner | Hackman Capital Partners, in talks with lenders as of July 2026 |
| Protected features | Facade, marquee, Art Deco spire | Central office facade, 430-foot Beverly Blvd viewshed |
| Landmark status | HCM No. 1248, adopted Dec. 2021 | HCM designation, 2018 |
| Announced plan | None yet | Approved TVC 2050 plan, now uncertain |
The buyer on the northwest corner sued over the southeast one
The two sites are tied together by more than the intersection. In February 2025, four lawsuits challenged the city's approval of TVC 2050. They were filed by The Grove, A.F. Gilmore, Save Beverly Fairfax and the Beverly Wilshire Homes Association, and they sought to set aside the approval and its environmental review. The project also had broad support. Backers included the Mid-City West Neighborhood Council, the Park La Brea Residents Association, the Fairfax Business Association and the Melrose Business Improvement District. Reporting through October has not described a ruling in those cases.
So in under two years, the Farmers Market's owner went from challenging the largest project at Beverly and Fairfax to owning the landmark on the opposite corner. Neighborhood groups have taken that as good news. Danielle Peters, president of the Beverly Grove Neighborhood Association, told Beverly Press that she was "definitely uplifted" by the purchase:
"Knowing the Gilmore Company the way we do, I am definitely uplifted by the fact that they purchased it because they are very community focused."
BGNA secretary Shelley Wagers called the parcel "a really pivotal property for this neighborhood" and said it is now "in really responsible hands." Dale Kendall, president of Save Beverly Fairfax, said the group is looking forward to "a really good project." Luftman, whose research helped win the 2021 designation, said he hopes the eventual project serves the community "and maybe has some housing too."
Gilmore's recent record at Third and Fairfax shows how it fills space. In July 2025 it added All'Antico Vinaio, the Florence sandwich shop. In August 2025, H&M opened a two-floor flagship of about 15,000 square feet at the market, the company's first U.S. store in a new format. None of that tells us what will happen at the theater, and the company hasn't said.
Wagers has also floated a possibility for Television City. She told Beverly Press that the studio campus could be a site for affordable housing, since Senate Bill 79 requires the city to plan for more housing and the lot sits on two major corridors. She added that her group would support such a plan only with infrastructure improvements in the surrounding neighborhoods. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky's office said in July that she is monitoring the situation.
The rest of the corner, now through mid-November
While both sites wait on plans or buyers, the businesses around the intersection are open, and a few dates fall over the next few weeks:
- Friday, October 30, 6:30 to 9 p.m. Friday Night Grooves returns to the Original Farmers Market West Patio near Gott's Roadside, with Danny Avila performing.
- Through 4 a.m. Monday, November 2. Metro's D Line stations at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega are closed for maintenance. Beverly Press reports that shuttle Line 855 runs every 10 minutes from Wilshire/Western, and bus Lines 20 and 720 keep running on Wilshire.
- Saturday, November 14, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Prosperity Market comes to the Farmers Market with Black farmers, producers, artists, florists and chefs, plus a DJ and a children's craft station.
- Wednesday, November 18, 6 to 7 p.m. The Salvation Army's free Kettle Kick-Off takes over the Market Plaza with live music and sing-alongs.
A short walk north of the theater, Canter's Deli at 419 N. Fairfax marked its 95th year this summer. Beverly Press covered the anniversary pastrami special. To the east, Pan Pacific Park at 7600 Beverly lists track and field among its programs.
When Gilmore files plans for the theater, or a buyer takes over Television City, the theater's spire and marquee and Television City's facade and 430-foot viewshed along Beverly will still be required to stay.
At Barrentine Group, we spend much of our time with historic properties that are changing hands, and with the families, trustees and buyers who need to know what a landmark designation protects and what it leaves open. If you own a character home near Beverly and Fairfax and want to talk through what changes at these two sites could mean for your block, we're glad to have that conversation.
