Week of February 2, 2012
Veteran California designer to stage Miami's film studio plan By Catherine LacknerThe Omni Community Redevelopment Agency has chosen California-based Bastien & Associates, Inc. as design consultant for the Miami Entertainment Center, the film studio it's planning at 29 NW 13th St., formerly a county schools building. "Their presentation was pretty spectacular," said Mark Spanioli, the agency's director of engineering and construction. "They've done 150 studio projects all over the world." Local firms Bermello Ajamil & Partners and Architects International were among the three final competitors, he said, but Bastien & Associates won on the basis of quality. The firm's clients include Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Universal Studios and Raleigh Studios, according to its Web site. Los Angeles Center Studios, Manhattan Beach Studios, Dubai Studio City and Ciudad de la Luz Studios in Alicante, Spain, are among recent projects. Bastien & Associates is to advise the agency what the 89,000-square-foot building's potential is and work out practical details such as the number and size of the sound stages, offices, production facilities and other spaces. Their report will be presented at the agency's next meeting Feb. 27, Mr. Spanioli said. The next phase will be design, in which blueprints will be drawn and permits pulled. By April, the agency hopes to have a design of the Miami Entertainment Complex ready to present to board members, H. Bert Gonzalez, the agency's assistant director, has said. The film complex is intended to make Miami a more desirable filming destination and to create year-round jobs for highly skilled local production crews. The agency's board, which is the City of Miami commission, allocated $1.1 million last August for planning, design, permitting and construction of the complex, which is projected to cost $10.6 million. Money permitting, the complex is to have two state-of-the art sound stages of 10,000 to 12,000 square feet each. The building is also to have office space and a motion capture stage, which is a special visual effects green screen stage where filming is done for digital imaging. The average rental fee per day for sound stages of similar size to those planned for the complex is $2,000, according to the redevelopment agency's report. If the complex were rented out 100% of the time, the net profit for the city would be more than $2 million a year, the report says. Even if the space were only rented at 25% of capacity, the city is projected to make a $39,225 profit. To read the entire issue of Miami Today online, subscribe to e -Miami Today, an exact digital replica of the printed edition. |
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