Plans for a new studio facility proposed for the port lands in downtown Toronto include what could end up being the world’s largest custom-built soundstage.

Earlier this month, Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman announced the creation of a massive $150-million studio development on the waterfront with the core intent of attracting big-budget (US$50 million-plus) features that have been bypassing the city.

According to the city, the new production centre will generate an extra US$250 million a year in film production.

Still, many in the business, including Adam Ostry, president and CEO of the Ontario Media Development Corporation, sound a note of caution.

The project, Ostry says, has been a long time coming and is already off to a bumpy start. Lastman announced the deal before the Toronto Economic Development Corporation had even agreed to begin negotiations with the consortium group spearheading the project. The group includes U.K.-based Pinewood Shepperton Studios, along with Shoot City Studios, architectural firm HOK Canada and Sequence Development Group, all of Toronto.

‘If this works, it will be fabulous for the Toronto industry,’ Ostry says. ‘It will permit Toronto to compete on a global scale in the niche market that it currently can’t compete in: the big-budget, effects-driven, highly elaborate and highly sophisticated movies and television series.’

TEDCO has since given the green light to begin negotiating with the studio consortium.

The facility will house more than a million square feet of office space, post-production facilities and nine sizeable soundstages across 43 acres of land.

If all goes according to plan, this will include a 50,000-square-foot soundstage, which exceeds even Pinewood’s famous 007 Stage, for years the standard-bearer at just over 45,000 square feet.

‘That is the intent,’ says Greg Copeland, founding partner of Shoot City Studios, which will operate the new facility in conjunction with Pinewood. ‘In terms of an actual purpose-built stage…this could conceivably be the largest.’

Such a facility, coupled with the support of Pinewood, would allow the studio, dubbed Pinewood Shoot City Studios, to leverage coproduction treaties with European producers, Copeland says, in addition to major U.S. and Canadian projects.

While the new development has a strong upside for the Toronto industry, some studio operators question whether they will be playing on a level field since the project has City Hall behind it.

Steve Mirkopoulis, president of Toronto-based Cinespace Studios and head of the Ontario Film and Television Studio Owners Association, cautions that the new facility should not be afforded any special treatment because of its connections with the city.

‘It is a positive development as long as it stays a private-sector initiative,’ he says. ‘We cannot have the city or the province or the federal government competing with us.’

Mirkopoulis claims that a federally run studio at the converted Downsview military base in Toronto has been undercutting private studio operators.

Brenda Librecz, managing director of economic development for the City of Toronto, says that while it has not been decided whether the new operation will lease the land or buy, it will get no special breaks. ‘It will be a market-value project where there will be no bonusing or subsidization,’ she says.

The new development will see the construction of a 30,000-square-foot, 20,000-square-foot and six 15,000-square-foot soundstages in addition to the main stage. The facility could open as soon as early 2004 if negotiations continue without any major hitches.

Copeland says there are other facilities currently under construction or in the planning stages in other production centres that could meet or exceed the Toronto plans – including the conversion into studio space of a 1.25-million-square-foot Hyundai plant in Bromont, QC.

But for the first time in a long time, Toronto will at least be up to speed on such initiatives.

For years the lament coming out of Toronto’s production community, particularly from service producers, has been that the city is losing business to better-served film centers in B.C. and Quebec.

The Vancouver area is home to several major studio facilities including Lions Gate Studios and The Bridge Studios, which boasts a 40,400-square-foot effects stage. Montreal, meanwhile, has several top-line stages as well, including Mel’s Cite du Cinema’s 37,000-square-foot Studio H.

While Toronto has some equally large stages, most are converted spaces that were designed for other uses such as warehousing.

‘We’re known in Toronto for being in second place, or third place, possibly, as far as studio space,’ says Patrick Whitley, president Dufferin Gate Productions, who fully supports the idea behind the new development. ‘As producers, as a group, we’ve been encouraging further studio facilities in the town.’

Ostry says the spillover to other studios and the boost to post-production from new business coming though town will benefit the Toronto industry as a whole.

‘There will also be a lessening on the upward pressure on rental costs,’ he says, which would benefit smaller independent producers who will be able to access soundstages previously out of reach.

While on the surface a massive new studio complex has the feel of a Wal-Mart moving into a small community and crushing local competitors, many studio owners remain hopeful that there will be positive spin-off.

‘If somebody wants to build to attract that market, they’re not going to hear a complaint from me,’ says Ken Ferguson, president of Toronto Film Studios.

Ferguson plans to go ahead with TFS’s studio expansion of several smaller stages in the 15,000-square-foot range.

Lillyann Goldstein, owner of @Wallace Studios, also remains hopeful.

Part of Goldstein’s optimism stems from the fact that @Wallace is currently redeveloping the old Gooderham-Worts distillery, partly for location shooting but also as a cultural destination with cafes and galleries.

The distillery is a stone’s throw from the new development.

‘There may be spillover. There are lots of [old] buildings, there are production offices, and if we do what we want with the restaurants and the arts and entertainment, it may be very complementary [to the new Pinewood Shoot City Studios].’

Still, Goldstein has decided not to build a planned new soundstage, due in part to the new port lands facility.

Meanwhile, rumors continue to swirl that Alliance Atlantis Communications will take part in what will be 500,000 square feet of office space in the new development.

AAC spokesperson Kym Robertson says that while the Toronto-based company has considered such a move in the past, there are no plans to enter into any tenancy agreements presently.