Quebec City businessman Alain Gariépy is lobbying investors and three levels of government to raise the cash to construct a $7.3-million production studio in the provincial capital, aimed at midsized, local shoots.

Gariépy wants his Centre technologique Momentum to be a multi-faceted production and training center, equipped with a 780-square-meter soundstage, a lounge theater, a small hotel and restaurant.

‘It’s not financially feasible to simply build a soundstage. We will offer a range of post-production services and host corporate events,’ he says. Gariépy conceived of the project in 2005, and says his center will create 40 jobs. He also hopes 12 students will train there annually.

Gariépy wants to serve the regional market around Quebec City. He believes there are dozens of TV and film professionals in the provincial capital who are forced to work in Montreal.

‘Unfortunately, the audiovisual industry is centralized in Montreal. We are like a poor cousin,’ says Gariépy, who has worked in the film industry as a sound engineer for more than 30 years, and once ran the Quebec City recording studio Studio Momentum, which closed in 1998.

He hopes the center will open in time for Quebec City’s 400th anniversary in 2008. ‘All kinds of activities will start in May of that year in Quebec City. We would like to be up and running by that time. But it’s going to be tough to reach that goal.’

Gariépy, who wants the project to be a public-private partnership, says his pitch to federal, provincial and municipal governments has been well received. He says he can raise 52% of the project’s budget at the bank and from private sector investors, and hopes one of Quebec’s pension funds as well as provincial, federal and municipal governments and a local film co-op will kick in the remaining money.