May 23,  2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  John Pavlik - (310) 247-3000

Beverly Hills, CA - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has purchased the former Don Lee-Mutual Broadcasting television studios at Vine Street and Fountain Avenue to be the future home of the Academy Film Archive, Academy President Robert Rehme announced today.

The 118,000 square-foot building at 1313 North Vine Street in Hollywood also will house the Academy Players Directory and a 300-seat screening room as well as approximately 15,000 square feet of storage for collections of the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library.

The purchase price was $21 million and includes several vacant parcels of land that will be used in the short term for parking. The property was purchased from Accord/HOL Members, LLC, and most recently housed the operations of Aids Project Los Angeles.

"The Academy is very pleased that this historic building, which is so ideally suited to the needs of our Academy Film Archive, is located in Hollywood and that we can further contribute to the community's revitalization," Rehme said. The Academy announced three years ago that it will move its annual Awards presentations to the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland^™ "We began in Hollywood 73 years ago," Rehme said, "and we are looking forward to being a major presence once again, starting with the Awards ceremony next March 24. And shortly after that we'll reopen this building."

The building presently contains about 40,000 square feet of studio and sound stage space. "With their high ceilings, these spaces could provide the equivalent of nearly 85,000 square feet of conventional-height vault space using fixed shelving, even more with compact shelving," said Academy Executive Director Bruce Davis.

The thick concrete walls of the studio spaces will be relatively easy to convert to air-conditioned storage vaults, Davis said, which are generally kept below 50O Fahrenheit.

In addition to the studio/vault spaces, the building has almost 30,000 square feet of space which will be used for film archive staff offices and conference rooms, preservation and conservation work space, public access and research rooms, and the Academy Players Directory.

"The lack of storage for our film archive and library collections isn't the only space problem we're experiencing," said Davis. "The growth of our staff and programs over the last couple of decades has meant that we've run out of office space in our Beverly Hills headquarters building, too. Moving the Players Directory from that building to Hollywood will not only free up some space in Beverly Hills, but puts the Players Directory in a location more central and convenient to the industry and clientele they serve."

The building was originally built for the Don Lee-Mutual Broadcasting network in 1948 and is the oldest surviving structure in Hollywood that was originally designed with television in mind.

Renovation of the building is expected to begin as quickly as possible, according to Davis, and will be completed in approximately 12 months. Among the improvements to be made will be strengthening of the roofs and full fire sprinkling throughout the facility, to meet long-term archival standards. Renovation will be designed and supervised by Fran Offenhauser, whose designs for the Academy's Center for Motion Picture Study in Beverly Hills, the present home of the Academy Film Archive and the Margaret Herrick Library, won national awards for adaptive reuse.

The Library and the Film Archive moved into the Center for Motion Picture Study, the former Beverly Hills water treatment plant, in 1991. "It became apparent almost immediately that we were going to need additional space, especially for the Film Archive," Davis said. "Film Archive collections began to expand at an accelerated rate and we were forced to rent additional storage space in 1994 and again in 2000. We've been looking for an appropriate space for the Film Archive for quite some time. It hasn't been easy, but I think we've found it. We're all very excited by the possibilities."

The Academy Film Archive has more than 45,000 items in its collections. "We've had to be unusually careful about our acquisitions because of the space problem," said Film Archive Director Michael Pogorzelski. "But even so, we've added significantly to the collections in recent years and we look forward to a greatly expanded program of acquisition, preservation and restoration."

Cramped space at the Film Archive's current location also has made public use of the collections very difficult. "We expect access to the collections for researchers and scholars to be significantly improved in the new building," Pogorzelski said.

The Academy Players Directory also has been hampered by crowded conditions at the Academy's 8949 Wilshire Boulevard headquarters. Beverly Hills parking restrictions, especially, make it difficult for actors to get to the Directory's fourth-floor offices during the work week. "With more-than-adequate parking spaces on the Fountain and Vine property, it should be far more convenient for patrons to visit the Players Directory during the three filing periods each year," Davis said.

"We've redesigned our office space twice in recent years to accommodate the growth in listings in the Directory," said Players Directory Editor Keith Gonzales, "both the printed books and the on-line versions. Expansion room will be a very welcome change."

The Players Directory will occupy about 5,000 square feet immediately off the lobby of the new building. "It will be the most public use of space in the new facility," Davis said, "so we'll want it to be as convenient as possible for our patrons."

The 300-seat screening room will be used in evaluating films upon which preservation and restoration work is being done, and during Academy Awards^® season by the viewing committees that select nominees in some of the special awards categories, such as Foreign Language Film, Short Films and Documentaries.