whats the deal with that movie studio? does anyone have any updates or renderings or was the whole thing scrapped?

the movie studio was built, if you're referring to the one on the west side.

wasn't it like "north lawndale" or something?

Is this the one you're talking about? It's been scaled back, but it looks to be moving ahead.

From the city's Department of Planning and Development:

Wednesday, November 3, 2004
North Lawndale film studio rolls ahead

Council studies $43.7 million production complex

Mayor Richard M. Daley introduced a plan to City Council today to built a $43.7 million film and television studio complex on a former illegal dumpsite in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side.

"Transforming this former dumping ground into a state-of-the-art movie and television studio complex in an incredible accomplishment," Mayor Daley said. "The redevelopment story is worthy of a movie script itself."

The project involves the cleanup and sale of 11 acres of vacant land at 4300-58 W. Roosevelt Rd., and the construction of a production studio complex that will have a total of five sound stages: three of 18,000 square feet each, and two of 28,800 square feet each.

The complex to be known as Central City Studios would also include a three-story production office building, a 21,660-square-foot mezzanine area for production support, and a landscaped parking lot for approximately 450 parking spaces.

Designed by architects Bastien and Associates, Inc. and Campbell, Tiu, Campbell, the modern facility will contain approximately 182,900 square feet of total building area.

Central City Studios will be managed and operated by Raleigh Enterprises, a Santa Monica, Ca.-based firm recognized as the largest and best operator of independent film studio facilities in North America. They are the leading rental provider of professional lighting and grip equipment to the motion picture, televison, commercial production and special events industries.

The studio spaces would available for rent to film and television production companies to meet their needs for sound stage space, camera, grip, lighting and editing equipment in order to produce feature films and television shows.

Raleigh will build the studio through assistance from local development partners Stephen Allison and Donald Jackson, whom had proposed the plan in 1999 to the Department of Planning and Development. The current proposal is a scaled back version of the original plan in order to make it a more viable project.

Under the current proposal, the development team would be sold the 11-acre City-owned site for the appraised value of $1.1 million. The City plans to contribute $10.5 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) assistance to the project, which has a total budget cost of $43.7 million.

A majority of the area was a former abandoned illegal dump for approximately 600,000 cubic yards of construction and demolition debris and soil. A two year clean-up of the brownfield site was completed December 1997.

Through the spending of studio tenants and related businesses, the proposed film and television studio complex is projected to contribute over $94 million annually to the City'seconomy. The complex could result in the creation of as many as 1,250 full and part-time jobs.

The developers have committed to working with the Mayor' Office of Workforce Development (MOWD) to train and employ residents from the surrounding neighborhoods.

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And this from reelchicago.com:reelchicago.com (http://www.reelchicago.com/story.cfm?section=TopStory&storyID=537)
Central City Studios to rise as 5-stage complex on 11 acre former dump site

Raleigh Enterprises operates a studio in Hollywood (above), one of the oldest in L.A., and a studio in Manhattan Beach.

The on-again, off-again Central City X Studios is back on again with a vengeance. The Community Development Commission gave a stamp of approval Tuesday to a plan to build a $43.7 million, state-of-the- art film and TV studio complex on the West Side.

The 11-acre former illegal mountain of debris at 4300-58 W. Roosevelt Road figured prominently in the city’s Silver Shovel scandal of the mid-’90s. "Changing the dump site to a movie studio is a pretty incredible accomplishment, no matter how many years it takes", said Peter Scales, Dept. of Planning and Development spokesman.

Under the plan recommended by the CDD, the city would sell the site to Central City Studios LLC for about $1.1 million, according to Scales. Construction would be funded through use of $10.5 million in tax increment financing (TIF funds), more than $27 million in state bonds and grants and nearly $7 million in private equity.

Designed by studio architects Bastien & Associates, Inc. and Campbell, Tiu, Campbell, the complex will contain 182,900-sq. ft. of total building area.

It will consist of five sound stages, three 18,000-sq. ft., and two 28,800-sq. ft., plus a three-story production office building, a 21,660-sq. ft. mezzanine for production support, and a 450-car parking lot.

Construction will commence six months after final City Council approval. It should take 18 months until the facility is completed. Contractors are expected to go to minority-owned companies and part of the deal is to train and employ racial minority residents from the surrounding West Side neighborhoods for production jobs.

The Central City Studios LLC is a partnership between Raleigh Enterprises of Santa Monica, which will provide management, marketing and equipment capabilities, and attorney Stephen Allison and producer Don Jackson, who had proposed a $150 million movie complex back in 1999, but had to substantially scale it back after the original plan suffered a number of setbacks.

How the $7 million in private equity will be raised, and what the financial interest of each participant is has not been disclosed, although it’s said that Raleigh invested $6 million. Others said that Raleigh’s investment will be limited to equipment and management. Mark Rosenthal, president of Raleigh Enterprises, declined to discuss the details of his company’s financial involvement, saying "that’s Stephen’s area."

Raleigh Enterprises owns Raleigh Studios, the oldest, continuously operating studio in the U.S., with facilities in Hollywood and Manhattan Beach. It recently acquired Hollywood Rentals, specialists in lighting and grip, generators and production vehicle rentals, which is currently servicing the features "Roll, Bounce" and "Batman" while they film in Chicago.

Rosenthal said his company had been brought into the equation a few months ago. "We’ve been in the independent studio business since 1979 and have a good sense of what the industry needs are in terms of facilities and equipment," Rosenthal said.

Commercial production has been a mainstay of Raleigh Studios and Rosenthal expects studio rentals will come from Chicago ad agencies as well as from production of features and TV shows and series.

Rosenthal avoided noting if L.A. appointees would hold management positions here. "We anticipate we will do our best to have people from the local community working in management, while the oversight and controls would come from L.A.," he said.

My evil side has kicked in. It really didn't have to try very hard. It was always right below the surface.

Things have been too quiet. Not enough anomosity. Too peaceful.

Chicago was the first Hollywood, during the silent film era. How many of you have seen the "Universal International" logo on the building near the Roosevelt-Michigan intersection?

My evil side? Wouldn't this be a great time to let Silverlake know that Mayor Daley has been negotiating with ALL major Hollywood studios to move to Chicago and a deal, soon to be announced, is in the works that will make it happen?

How I am able to live with myelf is beyond me.

That's great news for Chicago. Maybe now it will establish itself as a city that is just as media friendly as L.A. or New York. This will do a lot to attract the industry here which, as of now, has not been too great. My uncle is a film editor and says that most of the movie business goes to either the east or the west coast, but there's not much to do here. That would be great if we could turn that around. That would mean we would get celebs coming here now. Awesome!

My evil side has kicked in. It really didn't have to try very hard. It was always right below the surface.

Things have been too quiet. Not enough anomosity. Too peaceful.

Chicago was the first Hollywood, during the silent film era. How many of you have seen the "Universal International" logo on the building near the Roosevelt-Michigan intersection?

My evil side? Wouldn't this be a great time to let Silverlake know that Mayor Daley has been negotiating with ALL major Hollywood studios to move to Chicago and a deal, soon to be announced, is in the works that will make it happen?

How I am able to live with myelf is beyond me.

Edsg, where did you get this news? I have never heard about any of this

About the new studio. I have gone to the architects' websites, and I still can't get any renderings. Anybody who can pull that off is da MAN!



New studio plays role in city’s film industry
Lawndale film studio could provide Columbia students with jobs in field
By Andy Cline
Associate Editor

AP
A film studio on Chicago’s West Side comes at the same time as a boom in the state’s film industry. Major motion pictures such as ‘Ocean’s Twelve’ have been shot in Chicago in the past year due to Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s tax breaks for films.
Sweetheart deals and tax breaks have lead to a boom in the Illinois film industry, and a proposed Lawndale studio could solidify Chicago as the second city of film.

On Nov. 3, Mayor Richard M. Daley introduced a plan to the city council to build the complex on the West Side. The almost $44 million complex will be built on a former illegal dumpsite in North Lawndale, according to Peter Scales, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Planning and Development.

The building site, located at 4300-58 W. Roosevelt Road, will occupy 11 acres of land. The complex will be known as Central City Studios and will be the only studio of its kind in the city.

“Transforming this former dumping ground into a state-of-the-art movie and television studio complex is an incredible accomplishment,” Daley said in a briefing. “The redevelopment story is worthy of a movie script itself.”

The complex is expected to serve as a monetary and economic boost to a community that needs investment. It is expected to contribute more than $94 million annually to Chicago’s economy, as well as providing more than 1,200 full- and part-time jobs, according to a press release.

“The $94 million mark we feel is conservative,” Scales said. “The movie business is big business and this could be the shot in the arm that Chicago’s film industry needs.”

The proposal, if passed, could be beneficial to Columbia graduates as well.

“My overarching interest is in seeing Chicago rise again as a creative center for visual media production, so our graduates have the option of staying in the region to develop their own projects and careers,” said Bruce Sheridan, chairman of the Film and Video Department at Columbia.

The complex will be approximately 182,900 square feet, and will include five sound stages, two of which are 28,800 square feet and three that are 18,000 square feet, a 21,660 square foot mezzanine and a parking lot that will hold approximately 450 cars.

The building was designed by Bastien and Associates Inc. and Campbell Tiu Campbell, both architecture firms within the city. Raleigh Enterprises, the largest builder of independent film facilities in North America, will manage and operate the studio.

Local builders Stephen Allison and Donald Jackson, who originally proposed the plan in 1999, will work in conjunction with Raleigh to build the complex, Scales said.

The city owns the land and Raleigh would have to purchase it at a price tag of $1.1 million. The city, however, has agreed in principle to provide $10.5 million in Tax Increment Financing assistance.

The former illegal dumpsite was filled with demolition debris and soil, but after a two-year clean-up effort that ended in December 1997, officials expect no ill effects.

“The site is clean,” Scales said. “There are no anticipated problems.”

If this project comes to pass, statistics show that the film industry in Chicago could possibly benefit greatly. According to the Illinois Film Office, Illinois earned more than $25 million in 2003, down from recent years, including a $72 million profit in 2001.

The proposal is being released in the wake of the passing of the Illinois Film Production Services Tax Credit Act. The Act—effective on Jan. 1, 2004—gives a 25 percent tax break for filmmakers in Illinois. With the tax incentive in place, Rich Moskal, director of the Chicago Film Office, believes it will bring more business to Chicago.

“I don’t believe the film studio has anything to do with the tax break,” Moskal said. “It is well timed, but the studio has been in the works for a few years.”

Since the tax incentive went into effect, however, Chicago has seen an increase in production boasting major movie titles such as Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale; The Weather Man, starring Nicolas Cage; and Ocean’s Twelve, with George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

Plans for the complex include raising revenue by renting out studio space for filming and television production companies. This process will allow incoming companies to be accommodated with all of the technical equipment needed to produce films and television shows.

The proposal, as it stands now, is still before the finance committee. Assuming the proposal is approved, the builders will begin work in spring 2005. A finished product would not be expected until at least a year after the ground breaking.

“The city is behind the project both financially and in spirit,” Moskal said. “There are expectations of making news in the film industry nationwide.”

Raleigh and the building contractors have formed an alliance with the mayor’s Office of Workforce Development in order to train local residents within the neighborhood for possible employment.