A partnership between Lansing-based Ahptic Film & Digital and the Gillespie Group is going to bring Hollywood glitz, glam and money to Lansing.
The two are working on a $9 million, 71,000 square 
foot production facility that will include two 24,000 square foot stages, production space and post and screening facilities for feature films, sitcoms and other major productions.
“This sound stage is exactly what Hollywood wants,” says Matt Martyn with Ahptic.
The project’s potential economic impact to the state and the region is extraordinary. Last year, Michigan received less than $10 million rom the film industry—a number that Lansing alone could double or triple when City Center Studios is complete, says Ken Droc with the Michigan Film Office.
So far the state’s received 51 applications for films ranging from a $100,000 budget to a $40 million budget. Nineteen applications for various feature films, documentaries and TV pilots have been accepted.
“Before, the state wasn’t really a player on a national scope, but overnight it 
became the number one player,” Droc says. “There’s interest all over Hollywood to come to Michigan.”
Intense economic booms have followed other areas of the country, such as Louisiana, that have made an effort to attract Hollywood.
“Shreveport [Louisiana] is the same size as Lansing, and it’s just booming,” Martyn says.
Gillespie and Ahptic couldn’t have moved forward on the City Center Studios project without help from the state government, which recently passed the largest film industry tax incentive package in the country.
City Center Studios will be built on an empty parcel of land located between Cedar and Larch streets south of Saginaw Street and should be complete by the end of 2009.
Source: Denyse Ferguson, Leap, Inc.
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
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