Written by on Sep 26, 2013. Posted in On Location

Entertainment firm plans new film studio for upstate New York

A California firm has announced plans to develop a film studio in the town of Schenectady in upstate New York. Pacifica Ventures wants to spend nearly USD70 million on filming facilities on a site formerly used by the American Locomotive Company (Alco).

“The company considered sites in numerous locations across New York, but was really attracted to the Alco site because it’s a shovel-ready site ready for development,” Ray Gillen, Chairman of Schenectady County Metroplex Development Authority, told the Schenectady Gazette: “We’ve been working very hard to get it ready for development and it’s a beautiful site on the river for a company that wanted to be upstate.”

Pacifica has been attracted to New York by the state’s generous location filming incentive programme. The company’s development plan includes five 20,000-square-foot sound stages with 70-foot-high ceilings, as well as workshop space and facilities for visual effects and other post-production. It would cater for both film and TV and would also offer event spaces.

New York has become one of the top filming centres in the US. Earlier this year The Amazing Spider-Man 2 became the biggest ever movie to shoot entirely on location in the state, using Grumman Studios and Gold Coast Studios on Long Island, as well as location filming elsewhere.

The development plan includes five 20,000-square-foot sound stages with 70-foot-high ceilings.

The location filming incentive programme now specifically incentivises productions to work in upstate locations outside New York City. Empire Visual Effects recently opened offices in Buffalo and the state’s post-production work increased by 25% in the 12 months after the filming incentive was sweetened in July 2012.

(Photo: Sony Pictures)