Ambitious Atlanta film campus promising billion-dollar investment no longer moves forward

This has led to a glut of soundstage space in recent months.

Studio Kane management was unable to secure financing, the Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported Tuesday., citing anonymous individuals. Bank financing for commercial real estate projects has proven difficult as the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates high to combat inflation.

A Chattahoochee Hills official said losing the deal would impact revenue.

“Property taxes would have been significant, in addition to any other sales taxes on purchases in and around the city,” said Chattahoochee Hills City Manager Rob Rokovitz. “There’s certainly an impact on revenue that would have been significant (for the city).”

Representatives for Kane Studio could not be reached for comment. The project website is no longer active.

Led by lawyer and political operative Patrick Millsaps, the Kane Studio plans would have been one of the largest campuses in the United States. requested a whopping one million square feet of soundstage space, equivalent to about a quarter of Georgia’s current inventory.

Kane Studio’s plans also included set and scenery store space, offices and other support facilities.

But several obstacles have prevented the project from moving forward at a timely pace, including tight financial markets and high interest rates. The Chattahoochee Hills the property had no water or sewer lines, so the developers would have had to manage the infrastructure from Douglas County before moving forward. It would have cost several million dollars, Rokovitz said.

Lukewarm demand for soundstage was another.

Kane Studio has gone through several iterations over the years. Before the pandemic, Millsaps planned to build on 3,000 acres in Albany, nearly three hours south of Chattahoochee Hills. Land costs in Albany 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 crew. But the property was in a federal opportunity zone, which would have provided the project with significant tax savings.

After the pandemic, Millsaps changed course and targeted Chattahoochee Hills, not far from the planned rural village of Serenbe. The land was rezoned to mixed-use district in June, with the proviso that if the sale of the property was not completed by the end of the year, the city council could consider a vote to return it to mixed-use use rural. The land is owned by Painted Farm LLC, a subsidiary of the family that owns the Hennessy Automobile Companies car dealership empire.

In October, the Fulton County Development Authority approved $40.2 million in property tax breaks for the project. DAFC estimated the project would have generated $105.5 million in tax revenue over 10 years for the county, city and school system after tax savings were taken into account.

The savings would have accumulated over a period of 10 years period. A spokesperson for the authority said the project team would not receive any of the promised incentives because the campus was not finished.

“Unfortunately, this reminds us once again that we cannot take economic development opportunities for granted,” Daniella Gutierrez, a spokeswoman for the authority, recently renamed Develop Fulton, said in an email. “Even projects that receive incentive approvals from Develop Fulton are not always able to move forward.”

Steve Nygren, founder and CEO of Serenbe, said in an email that he was sorry to see that Kane Studio would not be a reality, but that other developments would “fill this void, bringing additional features and energy economic to the region.

-Staff writer Zachary Hansen contributed to this report.