The building where the merger of Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists was negotiated now bears the name of the union that was born from that merger.
SAG-AFTRA members, officers, and staff gathered April 16 for a ceremony renaming 5757 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles—home to SAG and AFTRA’s independent headquarters since the ’90s and to the combined union’s offices since the 2012 merger—as SAG-AFTRA Plaza. Signage featuring the union’s new logo was unveiled on north, south, east, and west sides of the building.
The building’s renaming is part of a deal that keeps the union at its Miracle Mile-district location through 2026. As SAG-AFTRA president Ken Howard said during the dedication ceremony, most of the union’s members “live within 10 miles of this zip code.”
Aside from being centrally located, the former Museum Square building had multiple factors in its favor as SAG-AFTRA last year began a search for an L.A. headquarters in the wake of merger. The union scouted locations for rent and purchase in neighborhoods such as Burbank, North Hollywood, Koreatown, Los Feliz, and the Westside.
“We got an exceptional deal to extend the lease,” SAG-AFTRA executive director David White told Backstage. “We are able to sub-lease any component of it any time we want. We have extreme flexibility. We got the name on the building and to name the plaza at no additional cost.” The union also received subsidized parking for members visiting the union’s office. “There wasn’t any deal that we could find that was remotely comparable to what we could find here cost-wise, accessibility wise, and in every other feature of the footprint that we would have here,” White said.
The deal, signed in January between SAG-AFTRA and landlord Oschin Snyder Partnership, would not preclude the union from purchasing its own property in the future. SAG-AFTRA could sub-lease as much of its rented space at 5757 Wilshire as it wants at any time.
The SAG-AFTRA logo is featured prominently in the Wilshire building’s new signage. Oschin Snyder was willing to hand over naming rights to the union, White said, because having the location’s largest tenant stay in place “gives them the assurance that we’re going to be around for another decade plus” and “is significant for them for this building, as they’re attracting new clients, and for other financial deals.”
The Screen Actors Guild Foundation will also maintain its headquarters in the building, where the non-profit recently upgraded to the top-floor penthouse space.
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