Hatching a new soundstage in Arizona may be more difficult than frying an egg on a winter sidewalk. But Jerry Kosowsky, managing director of Phoenix-based Icon Studios, and Stephen Brain, president of White Tiger Productions, Phoenix, are two players betting that the Arizona market is a fertile ground for soundstage construction. Both have gestating projects in the Phoenix area, and while Kosowsky was hoping to break ground for his project in September 1998, those plans were put
on the back burner while Kosowsky contends with the legal opposition of an egg farmer. The farmer, whose land lies adjacent to the land Kosowsky has purchased for the soundstages, challenged the zoning of Kosowsky’s project.
The stage developers in the Arizona market do not intend to compete with L.A.-based soundstages. "Our main target is the overflow of L.A., and our desire [is] to be complementary, not competitive," Kosowsky says. Phoenix, with a major airport, is the locus of efforts to build the stages. The idea is to create an infrastructure for film in the city so that it becomes much like Vancouver, B.C., Charlottesville, S.C., and Orlando, Fla.-in other words, a destination for commercial and film productions that fly the Tinseltown coop.
One of Phoenix’s much-touted advantages is the city’s location, a mere egg’s toss from L.A., meaning that personnel and mat riel can be conveniently transported to the city. As Brain puts it, in contrast to Vancouver, Phoenix’s location makes it "easy for a studio executive to jump on a plane, come to the set for meetings and be back in Hollywood in time for lunch." Arizona is a right-to-work state where productions can use union and non-union crews. Due to hospitable weather, productions can shoot year-round, and Phoenix has a lower cost of living than Los Angeles.
Whether or not this adds up to a financially viable soundstage project is a question that remains to be answered. The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and the projects will remain pie-in-the-sky until the first soundstages are actually built. In theory, the project looks good, a prognosis affirmed by a 1996 study prepared for the Arizona Department of Commerce and the Arizona Film Commission. The independent researchers for the study concluded that with the right mix of private investment and public incentives, the project is likely to succeed. Incentives currently offered by the state include a 50% tax refund on productions that meet certain spending criteria and fee-free filming on state lands. Linda Peterson Warren, the Arizona Film Commissioner, says that the soundstage developers needed to take the next step. "I think we’ve done all we can do in terms of the appetite of our legislature," she says. "Now it’s just a question of finding the investors. We’ve framed it and the private sector has to drive it." She added that the soundstages were a logical addition to the excursions productions make into the state for on-location shooting in a variety of natural settings.
Ribbon Cuttings
Kosowsky contends that despite the legal delays, he will be breaking ground in 1999, and he hopes to have a ribbon cutting sometime in early 2000. His Icon Studios are slated to be built in three phases, and Kosowsky has hired Bastien & Associates to design the facility, which he describes as "the most state-of-the-art [stage complex] that can be built as a four-wall studio." In the first phase, the developer plans to build 10 soundstages with accompanying production offices for a total of 500,000 square feet of space. This phase will cost $70 million and includes a Foley shop. In both the second and third phases, an additional 20 stages (10 in each phase) will be built with accompanying production and vendor offices. The final two phases will each cost approximately $50 million. While Kosowsky wouldn’t give any specifics, he said that some Phoenix-based companies were committed to moving into the production office space.
Brain, who helped to establish Vancouver’s North Shore Film Studios, initially came to Phoenix to set up animation studios for Twentieth Century Fox. Brain’s experience in Vancouver and with Fox in Arizona planted the seeds of the desert soundstage in his mind. "I saw how Vancouver has grown as a result of having a film studio, and I think the same thing is doable in Arizona," he says. Brain has two projects in the works: Arizona City Stages and Arizona Studios. The Arizona Studios is the more ambitious of the two, a 50 acre project that will have 14 soundstages. As outlined, six of the 14 stages will be 15,000 square feet, and the eight remaining will each be 20,000 square feet. Each stage will have an additional 3,000 square feet of production offices. Brain said the project will cost $100 million, which he is attempting to raise through a combination of private investment and debt. The architectural firm for the Arizona Studios proj-ect is Gensler, Santa Monica, the company that also designed the DreamWorks SKG studio that is planned for the Playa Vista wetlands in Los Angeles.
Brain came close in March 1998 to getting the financing for Arizona Studios but says the deal fell apart when a bank that was to invest in the project got cold feet due to the Asian financial crisis. (Brain would not identify the bank). For the moment, Arizona Studios is on hold, and Brain admits that it has been difficult raising capital for the project. "Nobody has really done it here before," he says. "Arizona Studios will happen when it happens. If it takes another year, so be it. It’ll happen when the investment groups are ready to come together and say, "Now’s the time, here’s the money.’ "
Instead of waiting, Brain has shifted his focus to Arizona City Stages while he runs White Tiger Productions, a commercial and feature production company. Arizona City Stages consists of five stages varying in size from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet that Brain is developing within an existing building that will also have space for production offices. Brain expected construction to begin on that project before mid-March for a completion date of late May or early June.
If Arizona City Stages is completed, production company Film House, based in Phoenix, would seriously consider becoming one of the stage complex’s first tenants. Phil Hagenah, executive director of Film House, says there is a real need for additional soundstages in the Phoenix area. "We can certainly use those stages," Hagenah explains. "There are times when all the stages here are busy. We’ve gone to L.A. and we’ve gone to Utah because there aren’t any stages available here."
Kosowsky and Brain concur on the type of projects they would like to bring to the soundstages, a mixture of feature, television, movie of the week, and commercial work. Kosowsky had some specific targets in mind, mentioning that "with the expansion of UPN and WB, we’ll try to get some sitcoms." Neither Kosowsky or Brain thought that the two soundstages, if built, would conflict with each other. "If the producers in Hollywood see we have Arizona Studios set up and Jerry has his set up, it’s all the better," Brain says.l
