Ken Ferguson has finally broken ground on the long-awaited Toronto megastudio, and says the first of its seven soundstages will be open for business in late 2007, with others opening early in ’08.

Work began on the FilmPort site – on a barren, industrial patch of Toronto’s eastern lakeshore – on Aug. 31.

The build was, at one point, expected to start in 2005, with space opening a year after that. More recently, the studio boss said work would begin this past spring, with an eye to opening in early 2007.

‘As in many aspects of life, the best things don’t come easily,’ Ferguson said at a Sept. 6 press conference at his Toronto Film Studios, adding he is ‘quite confident’ the project will now stay on schedule given that the two biggest potential problems – the availability of steel and the quality of the ground – have already been addressed.

‘We already know the ground is lousy,’ he quipped, going on to point out plans for the foundation.

Three soundstages will be ready before the end of 2007, he says, with the 45,000-square-foot ‘mega-stage’ and the remaining stages opening in early ’08, in time for the summer busy season.

Ferguson is optimistic, following meetings with Hollywood producers, that the stages will attract the sort of big-budget productions Toronto has recently been losing to Vancouver – such as two of the X-Men films and both Fantastic Fours – and other territories. No titles have yet been confirmed.

Ferguson’s Toronto Film Studios, together with its parent company The Rose Corporation, won the bid to build Toronto’s long-awaited megastudio in 2004 and signed a 99-year lease with the city last summer.