Hans Zimmer buys BBC studios for peanuts
NewsThe Hollywood film composer has struck a deal to buy the BBC’s Maida Vale studios for a risible £10.5 million.
The studios occupy half the side of a desirable street where single houses for for £3-4 million.
The BBC waited far too long to sell the semi-used facility. Ten years ago, a property dealer quoted me £40m as a reasonable prince for the site. Its value was diminished by a 2020 listing, but £10m still looks like giveaway.
More here.
Fantastic news for the London music recording and production sector to have somewhere else besides Abbey Road and Air Studios (the latter was, after all, the vision of another renowned music producer).
There will surely be a ton of work to do to bring the interiors of Maida Vale studios into the 21st century, but there are some great studios there, crying out for restoration. Certainly in all his musical work Hans Zimmer is a master at assembling and guiding teams of highly skilled people to produce a great product, and doubtless he will do similarly, now wearing a partly architectural hat, with Maida Vale. For if he creates a larger and more versatile version of Air Lyndhurst (in which he has recorded many film scores), London will have a stupendous recording and production facility.
Surely isn’t it so much better for the site that music continues there, rather than some developer building yet more expensive London houses. Economically, a set of world class studios will bring a lot more wealth and employment into the local economy than yet more unaffordable accommodation. So hats off to Mr Zimmer for having this vision and hopefully creating a world-class recording and music/video production centre to enhance London’s position at the centre of the international music production map.
It will cost a small fortune to remove the asbestos in the building first. Little wonder that it didn’t fetch a higher price.
Grade II listed building (so external walls cannot be changed) + major asbestos problem (which will probably be expensive to rectify) = lower price
What actual evidence is there that this was not a fair market price? The only thing risible here is your speculative financial commentary.
There is a great deal of expensive work that needs to be done before the building or site is fit for any purpose.
A ‘fair market price’ is usually what somebody is willing to pay. Unless there’s corruption which doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Having now read the sales particulars, any potential buyer considering applying for change of use from commercial to wholly residential would have had quite a job getting Westminster City Council [WCC] to allow that: at best they might have managed to get partial residential, but even then, it’s in a conservation area, and it’s Grade 2 listed, so all sorts of conditions would have been set down by WCC. So the valuation by agents Lambert Smith Hampton of offers above £10.5m thus seems rather more balanced: the site has been on the market for 6 months so developers maybe weren’t rushing to buy it – also not assisted by a compulsory lease back to the BBC to December 2025, with financial conditions pre-set, presumably so that the BBC can continue to use the studios whilst their Stratford complex is made usable. Though there again, doubtless it will anyway take a couple of years for architects to draw up plans and get them through WCC’s planning process.
Funny. I can recall recording ‘The Peanut Seller’ with Ron Goodwin in these studios
Sheeesh. This is good news for all concerned. Short- and long-term. Let’s not grumble, second-guess, and spoil it.
“Let’s not grumble”
No, go on, let’s grumble, whine and complain. Insert the phrase “white elephant” into everything and predict disaster.
The country is good at it.
“Hans Zimmer buys BBC STUDIOS for Peanuts”. That’s quite a gift for Charlie Brown!
Excellent news. Even counting renovation costs it has to be a steal.
Delaware Road has flats opposite the studios not houses…I should know I lived there for a while.
You’re not wrong but NL’s point was that houses there sell for £3-4m. Not that there are many single houses opposite the studio, but I’d imagine the ones near Warwick Avenue Station (identifiable by the private security guard patrols) are in that price bracket.
It looks as though Hans Zimmer takes a rather more positive view of the future of the London commercial session scene than does that famous ‘expert’, erm, N. Lebrecht….
‘There’s just one small fly in the intment.’ (sic) ‘The flow of large-scale recordings is over. Abbey Road stands largely empty. And whatever work is left to go around gets done at much lower cost in Munich and Prague.’
Written in November 2021 during one of the longest busy patches for film score recordings in London music history – a busy patch which is still in full flow, limited more by lack of available studio time than lack of projects- an issue Mr. Zimmer is evidently addressing in the most affirmative possible way.
Norman, you were more wrong than a flat-earther doing a PhD in Wrongness at Wrong College, Oxford. Weren’t you?
I thought they needed money; or is it just ‘redirecting’ assets?
Superb news for the London session scene, and the wider UK film sector. Currently Abbey Road and Air are booked up months in advance, if not longer; even Audio Network have had to make other arrangements. Maida Vale may need extensive renovation, but it has Studio 1 to rival Abbey Road 1 and Lyndhurst Hall, plus Studio 3 to rival AR2, Studio 2 to rival Angel, plus a bunch of usable smaller studios. None of the MV studios have booths, so that will doubtless be a consideration, plus the asbestos, of course. And the desks may need a bit of a look at. London session players are second to none in the world for getting the job done with professionalism, musicality, adaptability, good humour, and virtuosity.