TriBro Studios has announced plans to expand its GTA studio with the addition of a 30,000 square-foot sound stage.

Construction on the purpose-built special effects stage is scheduled to begin later this fall.

The studio, located north of St. Claire on the city’s east side, launched as a 70,000 square-foot facility less than two years ago in December 2014. However, Canada’s current production boom has sparked a need for more space, said TriBro Studios president Peter Apostolopoulos in an interview with Playback Daily.

“We’ve been booked solid since the studio launched, and are turning away productions all the time,” said Apostolopoulos. The plan, added Apostolopoulos, is to expand the studio by an additional 100,000 square feet in the coming years.

One of the productions currently shooting in TriBro’s Toronto studio is comedy series People of Earth, produced by Warner Horizon for TBS. The studio has also housed production of the first two seasons of Temple Street Productions’ series Killjoys.

As well as expanding its Toronto studio, TriBro has for the past 16 months been working on a project that will see a 270,000 square-foot studio being built in Pickering, ON.

The privately funded studio will be part of a complex the company calls “Durham Live” and is planned as a hub for regional tourism. The complex will include a casino, amphitheater, cinemas, three hotels, and an indoor waterpark, as well as other attractions.

Construction on the first of four stages is scheduled to begin in spring 2017, starting with a 61,000 square-foot stage with an indoor large-scale water tank, a feature Apostolopoulos says is under-served in the area. The water tank itself is planned to be approximately 37,500 square feet and will allow for full-scale indoor oceans and lakes, said Apostolopoulos, as well as having a complete green-screen background and enough space to accommodate large boats and yachts.

Construction will take approximately a year to complete. Meanwhile, the start dates for construction on the other three stages is still to be determined, though is likely to begin later in 2017.

Photo: Aerial rendering of the proposed site, courtesy of TriBro