The Film House Will Relocate to New Nano Hub in New York State

Film and television company The Film House will be relocating to a new Central New York Hub for Emerging Nano Industries in Onondaga County, New York.

The Los Angeles-based company will be the hub’s first tenant, and will be moving their headquarters and production, post-production and distribution operations.

The facility, to be located in the Collamer Crossings Business Park in Dewitt, will be led by the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE).

It will initially create 125 jobs, expected to grow to 350 as per a seven-year growth plan that calls for $150 million in private investment.

The first 52,000-square-foot building for The Film House will be completed by Oct 2014, and a second 52,000-square-foot building for additional tenants is expected to be completed by spring 2015. At least 150 construction jobs are expected to be created while the facility is being built.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said the new innovation hub will be a hotspot for research and education, and will bring hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and hundreds of new jobs to Central New York.

The Film House considered locations around the world during a site selection process. Ryan Johnson, president and CEO of The Film House, said nothing came close to offering an opportunity like New York does.

The facility is unique in that it combines multiple New York economic development incentive programs to offer great value for The Film House and others that may follow, vastly reducing the budgets for their film and television productions as compared to other states.

For starters, The Film House will be able to get the newly enhanced film tax credits that Empire State Development (ESD) offers for production and post-production.

Secondly, they will not be paying any income, business, sales or property taxes for up to 10 years since the facility will technically be a CNSE campus. Businesses relocating or expanding to a qualified educational campus and collaborating with the educational institution are tax-exempted under the newly approved Startup-NY program.

The hub will specialize in advanced visual production research and education. CNSE students will actually be provided on-the-job training by The Film House.

In addition to $15 million in NY State support through CNSE for building the facility, the company will also get local support from Onondaga County, which has already invested $1.4 million on site work to ensure the business park in Dewitt is shovel ready, and the county IDA is ready to help new tenants.

Onondaga County is also working with the Syracuse International Film Festival for establishing an Onondaga County Film Commission which would provide logistics and marketing support for film production.