The City of Toronto is touting “an unprecedented boom” in production volume that’s expected to last well beyond five years — a trend partly driven by an expansion of studio space, including a newly announced $250 million state-of-the-art media hub.

On Wednesday, Mayor John Tory announced L.A.-based real estate investor Hackman Capital Partners (HCP) and its affiliate, the MBS Group, as the successful proponent of the Basin Media Hub Request for Proposal (RFP).

Their plan is to build and operate a film studio complex on 8.9 acres, with up to 500,000 square feet of studio space and production offices in the lakefront Port Lands district.

The studio joins another major production space in the area, the expanding Pinewood Toronto Studios, and comes after Netflix announced the opening of their Canadian headquarters in Toronto earlier this year. Amazon Studios is also growing its investments in the city.

Earlier this year, HCP and Ottawa-based investment company PSP Investments also partnered on a long-term lease of land in Toronto’s Downsview neighbourhood to build a film and television production studio.

With streamers flocking to Toronto and more studio space coming online in the next few years, the city projects production volume for 2021 will surpass that of 2019, when a record $2.2 billion was spent in Toronto on production.

“We are looking at a period of sustained and exceptional growth and it’s incredibly exciting,” Marguerite Pigott, film commissioner and director of entertainment industries, City of Toronto, tells Playback Daily.

Pigott points to the Toronto Screen Industry Workforce Study released in March, which worked with the sector in Toronto to determine how much studio space is likely to come online in the next five years.

“We are projecting, based on that study, a 63 per cent increase to studio space in Toronto over the next five years,” she says.

“If you build it, they will come. That growth is going to be sustained, because we’re growing in a way that’s permanent, we’re growing purpose-built infrastructure that is going to attract more production here on an ongoing basis.”

Pigott says the majority of the work is service production on international projects, including the hits The Queen’s Gambit from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video’s The Expanse and The Handmaid’s Tale from Hulu/CTV Drama Channel. But streamers including Netflix and Amazon are also increasingly creating domestic, Canadian content in the city, she adds.

The city is working with union and guild partners, community group partners and educational institutions to grow the workforce to fill those studios “with a strong emphasis on diversity and inclusion,” says Pigott.

“I would say we’re not Hollywood North. I would say we’re Toronto,” she says. “This jurisdiction is so strong on its own merit.”

Photo courtesy of the City of Toronto.