Labor activists on Monday launched a public campaign to reopen the mothballed Toronto Film Studios facility, to ease a chronic shortage of downtown production space.

Bob Hall, president of IATSE Local 873, told reporters gathered outside the locked TFS gates that property owner Rose Corp. and partner Smart!Centres should ‘do the right thing’ and reopen the 16 soundstages. TFS closed after Rose Corp. opened its Filmport studio in 2008. The partner companies were recently denied an application to build a retail mall on the downtown site.

Besides launching an online petition, organizers of the ‘Open 629’ campaign hope to meet with Toronto mayor David Miller and Rose Corp. to back their call for reopening the site at 629 Eastern Ave.

‘Film technicians are the auto workers of the film industry. Our main factory has been shut down and we are running out of places to work,’ organizer and Toronto set decorator Cal Loucks said Monday.

Whatever the outcome, the campaign has exposed a growing trend: the lack of soundstages in downtown Toronto is forcing local and foreign producers to travel further afield, to Oshawa or Hamilton, to find available converted warehouse space. The conversion of warehouse space in downtown Toronto to condominiums, rather than soundstages, is also encouraging the exodus, as is the 10% tax break on labor costs for producers who shoot outside the greater Toronto region.

For example, Casino Jack, the Kevin Spacey-starring drama about disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has rented production office space at Filmport, but is currently shooting on location in and around Hamilton for extra savings.

‘It makes it a harder sell,’ said IATSE 411 business agent Robert Shea, of trying to woo Los Angeles producers to Toronto as they face a rising Canadian dollar and added travel and hotel costs and time delays of shooting outside the city.

Toronto’s shortage of production space for low- to mid-budget film and TV shoots worsened this year when it lost 16 soundstages at TFS and another eight at Cinespace Marine Terminal 28.

The nearby Cinespace Studios on Booth Avenue and Showline Studios remain busy, and Filmport had a good spring with the U.S. pilot season and the 80 cent loonie.

But Shea said a weakening American greenback and too few downtown soundstages recently sent the Hollywood movie projects Footloose, Salt and The A Team to rival locales after they scouted Toronto.

The unions and guilds favor production close to home in Toronto because shooting in the regions requires extra travel costs and time after an already long shooting day or night.

Shea said reopening TFS would ease Toronto’s challenge to attract film production. ‘There’s no conversion time and costs at the Toronto Film Studios. You just prep your show and shoot,’ he said.

Rose Corp. executives are not speaking publicly about their next move, but it is understood that the main player is TFS managing partner Smart!Centres, which is appealing the recent rezoning decision.

Former TFS executives also dispute claims by the Open 629 campaign that the studio can be reopened by simply unlocking the gates and flicking a light switch.

The facility was emptied and prepared for demolition before its closure, and would require significant investment before it could be reopened.