A planned $1 billion film studio campus in rural southwest Fulton County is not moving forward.
The developer behind the ambitious Kane Studio project in Chattahoochee Hills is no longer under contract to acquire the 1,600-acre parcel along Campbellton Redwine Road, where it envisioned building 30 soundstages, Mike Morton, the city’s community development director, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday.
Georgia and metro Atlanta in particular saw a soundstage building boom in recent years as Hollywood ramped up production coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. But that business screeched to a halt amid strikes by actors and writers, and production hasn’t returned as robustly as many had hoped since the labor actions were resolved.
That’s led to a glut of soundstage space in recent months.
Kane Studio leadership could not secure financing, Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported Tuesday, citing unnamed individuals. Bank financing for commercial real estate projects has proven difficult as the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates elevated to fight inflation.
A Chattahoochee Hills official said the loss of the deal would have a revenue impact.
“The property taxes would’ve been significant, in addition to any other sales taxes from purchases in and around the city,” said Chattahoochee Hills City Manager Rob Rokovitz. “There’s certainly a revenue impact that would’ve been significant [to the city].”
Representatives for Kane Studio could not be reached for comment. The website for the project is no longer active.
Spearheaded by attorney and political operative Patrick Millsaps, the Kane Studio plans would have been one of the largest campuses in the U.S. It called for a massive 1 million square feet of soundstage space, equal to about one-quarter of Georgia’s current inventory.
The Kane Studio plans also called for set and scenery shop space, offices and other support facilities.
But several obstacles stood in the way of the project moving at a timely pace, including tightened financial markets and high interest rates. The Chattahoochee Hills property did not have any water or sewer lines, so the developers would’ve had to have run the infrastructure from Douglas County before moving forward. This would’ve cost several million dollars, Rokovitz said.
Tepid soundstage demand was another.
Kane Studio has had several iterations over the years. Before the pandemic, Millsaps planned building on 3,000 acres in Albany, nearly three hours south of Chattahoochee Hills. Albany land costs are significantly cheaper than in metro Atlanta, but Albany is hardly a hub for filming given its distance from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and lack of a crew base. But the property was in a federal opportunity zone, which would’ve given the project significant tax savings.
After the pandemic, Millsaps changed course, and targeted Chattahoochee Hills, not far from rural master-planned village Serenbe. The land was rezoned to a mixed-use district in June, under the condition that if a sale of the property did not close by the end of the year, City Council could consider a vote to revert it back to a rural use. The land is owned by Painted Farm LLC, an affiliate of the family that owns car dealer empire Hennessy Automobile Companies.
In October, the Development Authority of Fulton County approved $40.2 million in property tax breaks for the project. DAFC estimated that the project would have generated $105.5 million in tax revenue over 10 years for the county, city and school system after accounting for the tax savings.
The savings would have accumulated over a 10-year period. An authority spokesperson said the project team will not receive any of the promised incentives because the campus was not completed.
“Unfortunately, this is another reminder that we cannot take economic development opportunities for granted,” Daniella Gutierrez, a spokesperson for the authority, which recently rebranded as Develop Fulton, said in an email. “Even projects that receive incentive approvals from Develop Fulton are not always able to move forward.”
Steve Nygren, the founder and CEO of Serenbe, said in an email that he is sorry to see that Kane Studio will not be a reality, but other developments will “fill that void, bringing additional features and economic energy to the area.”
-Staff writer Zachary Hansen contributed to this report.
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