With frustration mounting among local studio operators over Toronto’s plan to build a massive soundstage on the city’s harborfront, arguments for several, smaller locally owned stages abound.

An $118,000 report issued more than two years ago by the Toronto Film and Television Office and the Ontario Film Development Corporation (now the Ontario Media Development Corporation) outlined the need for more soundstage space in Toronto. The arguing begins over questions of who should build the stages, how big they should be and where they should be built.

In the two years since the report’s release, several local studio owners have pressed to build mid-sized staging, while the Toronto Economic Development Corporation has been pushing for a ‘mega-stage’ funded by an international investment community attracted to Toronto and its potential as a world-class, high-end feature film production destination.

There are all kinds of complex issues surrounding the lands around Toronto’s harborfront, the preferred location for more soundstages.

First, the area’s heavy industrial past has left the need for many millions of dollars worth of clean-up and soil remediation before anything can be done with the land.

The unsuccessful Toronto Olympic bid, as well, targeted the harborfront and contributed to a building freeze in the area that has ‘tied the hands’ of local Toronto studio owners, many of whom were ready to respond immediately to the study released late last millennium.

The recent establishment of the Toronto Harbourfront Revitalization Corporation and release of The Fung Report (on said revitalization), authored by developer Robert Fung, may also add red tape to local studio owners’ already frustrated quest.

Fung’s waterfront vision calls for a ‘convergence district’ designed not only to house soundstages and film-industry support, but also high-technology, biotechnology and multimedia, ‘all together in a major live-work environment.’

Meantime, Keith McCully, owner of StudioWorks in Toronto, has had two prefabricated state-of-the-art soundstages sitting on a train in Texas for more than a year. With all the politics surrounding the area, McCully is far from confident he can begin construction, despite the freeze being lifted July 14. ‘The freeze will just slide into yet another thing called the Waterfront Revitalization Corporation. This will stall plans,’ he says.

Impatient, McCully says if he cannot build in Toronto soon, he will take his new stages to another province. ‘Newfoundland has offered me $10 million to do the trip,’ he adds. The StudioWorks president is less and less concerned with where his new studios will rest: ‘You’ve got to remember, just a pair of twisted wires gets you around the world at any time, in realtime.’

At Toronto Film Studios, Ken Ferguson’s plans for studio expansion have also been on hold. TFS recently purchased 10 acres of property just east of its existing studio site in the harborfront area.

‘Demolition is going on as we speak and we plan to start building in the fall,’ he says. TFS, which had hoped to construct six new soundstages ranging in size from 15,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet, will begin construction on two stages this fall.

But, before building, Ferguson and TFS will have to undertake extensive clean-up of the property, a former shoe factory with pollution problems due to chemicals used in the tanning of leather. A major chemical fire at the property, around the time TFS was looking to buy the land, has also contributed to the mess.

The frustration of local studio owners is compounded by the growing concern that the original TFTO/OFDC report is outdated and that multiple, medium-sized studios would make better business sense than the mega-studio still desired by TEDCO and the city.

‘We don’t need the big, magnificent studio. That’s just a white elephant,’ says McCully. ‘The chances of it being busy 365 days a year or, better still, 24/7 are zero to none. It’s not needed now. That’s an old report with old ideas. In fact, the whole industry is going in another direction.’

McCully believes the move to high-definition, digital filmmaking will make the mega-studio obsolete before it has a chance to establish itself. ‘You need multiple, small staging to increase the frequency of in and out,’ he says.

Ferguson agrees a mega-studio doesn’t make good business sense. ‘If somebody has the balls and the money to build a mega-stage, it will get used. But I would have to question [the level] of utilization. The larger you get, costs go up exponentially. And frankly, in our experience, when a major feature film comes [to town], they’re not really looking for one big studio, they’re usually looking for three medium-sized studios.’

The report itself, according to OMDC senior advisor of marketing and communications, Michael O’Byrne, is in the hands of the Ontario Ministry of Tourism Culture and Recreation. O’Byrne says the OMDC will ‘respond accordingly’ to the recommendations of the ministry. Until then, it must wait.

‘They’ve had [the report] but they haven’t made any decision on it,’ says Jim McPeak, spokesman for the ministry. ‘They’ve been looking at putting together what the priorities for the ministry are. This will be a decision made down the road,’ he says.

Meanwhile, as the report plods through Queen’s Park, talk of a mega-studio has reached new levels, breaking out of the political white noise.

Recent reports that Alliance Atlantis was involved in a plan to create a 1.5-million-square-foot (about 40 football stadiums) mega-soundstage raised backs in the local studio community before AAC clarified that its intent was only to be a tenant in the studio and it wanted no part in the building or development of the property.

‘We have expressed an interest to TEDCO, which is the land owner, in us being a tenant in a feature facility if some owner or developer was interested in constructing it,’ says Judson Martin, executive VP and CFO at AAC. ‘We do not have any interest whatsoever in being an owner or being a developer.’

TEDCO president and CEO Allan Andrews is close to both the local owners’ and international investors’ situations. ‘We are talking a major, major facility,’ Andrews begins. ‘Probably in excess of a million square feet of development and probably in the order of $300-million-plus in assessment. It’s not within the capabilities of any of the locals.’

Andrews is concentrating on a mega-studio for Toronto, and he is looking elsewhere to make it happen. ‘I have been working on the possibility of building a major facility on approximately 30 acres of land. And that facility would be a composite of office space, broadcast studios and soundstages.

‘Clearly, Alliance Atlantis would be a prime tenant of that site, and we have spoken to a number of players as to the potential for them to develop this. So we basically have four potential proposals that we expect to get. HOK [a large St. Louis, MO-based architectural firm approached by Fung] is one of them. One is from a local developer, but in concert with others, mostly in the States. And I’ve spoken to others in the States who have declined. But we anticipate at least one from the U.S., potentially with some European money involved.’

The proposals, which are expected by the end of July, will be evaluated and a process will be determined ‘to identify the one we’re going to work with.’ Andrews cautions that this is a private-sector project and will undergo ‘analysis’ from that standpoint.

At AAC, Martin says local ownership is not a factor in becoming a mega-stage tenant. ‘I’m not so sure that we would be selective in who we are going to do business with. Whoever’s got the real estate. Whoever’s got the land. Whoever’s building the building – we would certainly speak to.’

Andrews would like to see the project ‘organized before the Waterfront Revitalization Corporation actually does anything.’

At TFTO, commissioner Rhonda Silverstone is waiting for the cards to fall, like everyone else. With ‘no power’ in the decisions, Silverstone’s role will be as ‘the one they turn to for information on the status of the industry.’

Fung, freshly appointed chairman of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation and chief visionary behind The Fung Report, is unable to answer specific questions until the city ‘validates’ his position, which is expected July 24. However, he does explain that his task force’s vision will be meshed with the city’s Toronto Waterfront Plan II, to be made public between July 24 and 26.

Fung also confirms reports that he has been in contact with billionaire land developer Mohamed Ali Alabbar. Alabbar’s company Emaar Properties of Dubai adds another player to the mega-studio landscape.

‘He likes the concept of convergence and the things I’m talking about,’ Fung says. ‘He did say he’s interested in coming in to take a look at the project.’

Fung, who promises ‘transparency’ and ‘consultation with stakeholders’ in the studio development process, says ‘we’re probably a few months too early to figure out how it’s all going to work together.

‘But things are going to happen. This is moving ahead.’ *