Raleigh Michigan Studios, formerly known as the Motown Motion Picture Studios, has obtained the $75.8 million in financing it needs to convert the idled General Motors plant in Pontiac into two buildings that will house seven new soundstages.
The stages range from 12,000-sq. ft. to 30,000 square feet. The stages could be ready for use by next summer.
Construction will start within the next 30 days, said Steve Lemberg, the company’s CFO.
“We are very methodically and successfully moving forward,” Lemberg told the Detroit Free Press.
Raleigh Michigan has big plans for its studio complex. It is in discussions that could result in one or more animation studios opening at the property, Lemberg said.
The studio also hopes to offer this fall some on-site film production training classes, taught by instructors from local schools.
Raleigh Michigan is backed by local businessmen A. Alfred Taubman, Linden Nelson and John Rakolta Jr. They are partnering with Hollywood’s Raleigh Studios and the talent agency William Morris Endeavor Entertainment.
In Chicago, ReelChicago reported back in July, 2004 that Raleigh Studios of Santa Monica and local developers were going to build a $43.7 million studio on a proposed 180,000-sq. ft. of land in North Lawndale, on the site of an illegal dump.
The grandiose plan, however, did not materialized for reasons never stated.
Presently, a realtor with family ties to a Toronto studio owner, has been looking at various Chicago properties as a site for a new studio complex, including one on the southwest side.
Production studios are widely viewed as the kind of infrastructure that Michigan needs in order to grow a thriving film and TV industry with thousands of permanent jobs. Filmmakers have been flocking to Michigan since last year, lured by the most generous tax breaks in the country, the Free Press said.
