Years of wrangling and fist-shaking came to an end in September with the stroke of a pen, when Ken Ferguson signed the 99-year contract to build and operate the so-called ‘megastudio’ in Toronto – silencing competitors and critics who had opposed the deal, and, it is hoped, laying the groundwork for a studio complex that will be on par with the biggest and best in the world.

Ferguson’s Toronto Film Studios and its parent, The Rose Corporation, won the contract to build FilmPort in 2004, but did not sign on the dotted line until this past September.

‘We are beyond any process now that requires any further big approvals,’ says Ferguson, as he has moved on to finalizing plans for construction. ‘Our target is to be in the ground by spring sometime, and if we are, we’re looking at an opening date that would be very early 2007.’

Ferguson says he will more actively court Hollywood projects by spring.

The project has also hired noted British architect Will Alsop – known locally for a colorful and seemingly gravity-defying building on stilts at the Ontario College of Art and Design – to design one of the studio’s central buildings. FilmPort hopes to attract related businesses such as unions, post houses and agencies to the area.

‘It’ll be quite an exciting office, just knowing the type of thing Will can come up with,’ says Ferguson.

The new facility – the first phase of which will comprise six soundstages and a mammoth 45,000-square-foot clear space – will cost $175 million and take up at least 30 acres on the city’s waterfront. But it did not take shape until after a series of false starts.

A previous and similar deal with the U.K.’s Pinewood Shepperton Studios fell through in 2003, when its real estate partner backed out over lack of tenancies and financing, forcing the city’s development wing, TEDCO, to re-audition for megastudio partners.

At the time, a second, competing megastudio was also under construction. Great Lakes Studios – a coventure of Paul Bronfman’s Comweb Group and Paul Vaughan’s Studios of America, housed in an old power station – has since been repositioned as a special effects and ‘raw’ space.

It is hoped that FilmPort will attract bigger Hollywood pictures, with budgets close to $50 million or more, which have recently favored B.C., Australia and other locations.

But even as he prepared to sign, Ferguson came under fire this past summer amid rumors that his supposedly sweetheart deal would shut smaller film- and TV-related businesses out of the city’s new studio neighborhood. Ferguson shot back at critics in an open letter to the film community, insisting his new building ‘will not monopolize the industry or kill other studios.’

Toronto Mayor David Miller, who has taken a keen interest in building the area’s film trade, also spoke up for FilmPort at a series of meetings during the summer.

Meanwhile, there’s still some machinery to dispose of, and the roof leaks, but Great Lakes Studios is now open for business, according to Bronfman and Vaughan. The site recently hosted the Paramount feature Stepping Up, the Don Carmody horror Skinwalkers and ABC’s untitled 9/11 miniseries with Harvey Keitel.

‘There’s still work to be done, but we don’t want to go too far, because we’re being encouraged to leave it as rough as we can,’ says Vaughan, ‘because that means they can weld cars to the columns and do things they couldn’t do if we closed it in.

‘And we had some demolition problems. The demolition contractor cut all the downspouts, so I’ve got 5.7 acres of roof draining through the building,’ he adds with a chuckle. ‘But within the 27 million cubic feet we have, there are still a lot of dry spaces.’

www.torontofilmstudios.com

www.comwebgroup.com