Construction underway on massive film production studio in Metro Vancouver

Artistic rendering of Martini Film Studios' major new film and television production studio campus at 216 Business Park in Langley Township. (Martini Film Studios)

In just over two years, British Columbia’s booming film and television production industry will receive much-needed new additional studio capacity to accept more highly coveted work from Hollywood.

In late 2021, Martini Film Studios (MFS) began construction on its expansion facility on an undeveloped 33-acre site just southwest of the Trans-Canada Highway’s 216th Street interchange in Langley Township.

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The campus will have 16 sound stages — each at 23,000 sq ft for a total sound stage floor area of about 370,000 sq ft. Additionally, there will also be 224,000 sq ft of support space buildings, such as for mill shops, wardrobe, props, and construction bays.

Two five-storey buildings also offer about 135,000 sq ft of office space to further support production operational and planning needs. This brings the total campus building floor area to about 730,000 sq ft.

And to take into account the growing use of electric vehicles, the company is installing 80 charging stations across the lot.

All of this is timed for a completion in the middle of 2024, and it will be one of the largest film and television production facilities in Canada.

martini film studios langley campus construction december 2021

December 2021 construction progress: Martini Film Studios’ new campus at 216 Business Park in Langley Township. (Google Maps)

Martini Film Studios first opened in the region in 2017 within two existing warehouse buildings at 9390-9390 198th Street and 19714 96th Avenue, near Highway 1’s 200th Street interchange in Langley Township. Both existing facilities have a total floor area of about 250,000 sq ft.

But unlike MFS’ first two buildings and most other studios that have opened elsewhere in Metro Vancouver over the past two decades, the new 216th Street campus is being built entirely from scratch with purpose-designed structures to fulfill the most optimized needs of productions.

“This is a brand-new, state-of-the-art studio campus with modern, purpose-built sound stages,” Gemma Martini, the CEO of Martini Film Studios, told Daily Hive Urbanized this week.

“Many of the existing studio facilities in the region are conversions of industrial buildings, but the new Martini Film Studios was purpose-built as a filmmaking destination, with all the support space and facilities to host major productions filming in the region.”

Leasing plan showing the site of 216 Business Park in Langley Township. (Form Real Estate Advisors)

Plans for the new MFS campus were first announced in September 2019 during the Toronto Film Festival.

The facility is the largest use of the future Langley 216 Business Park, which spans an area of 80 acres with retail and office. The film studio will occupy the business park’s designated warehouse development area.

“We have had an amazing response from all the major studios and networks. They were extremely supportive during the design phase of the new facility, and are keen to discuss opportunities to film future productions here when the studio gates are open for business,” said Martini.

The ample large sound stages accompanied with the significant ancillary, support, and office spaces will allow the campus to host up to five productions for filming simultaneously. Up to 700 people could be working on the lot each day.

MFS will retain the use of its existing facilities, which are seeing new investments to reduce their carbon footprint. Earlier this month, the company announced the existing facilities have switched to operating on renewable natural gas, making the Walnut Grove area studio the first film production facility in BC to use FortisBC’s carbon-neutral program.

She says they are aiming to reach net zero energy use on the existing facilities by the end of this year. As well, the company is supporting an initiative that equips productions with resources to implement sustainable practices and reduce their environmental impact.

Currently, Netflix is the main user of MFS’ existing facilities, which have hosted shows such as Space Force, Snowpiercer, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Television shows such as Virgin River, Supergirl, SEEI, and Snake Eyes have also filmed at their remote properties.

Exterior of a soundstage at Martini Film Studios’ existing facilities in Langley. (Martini Film Studios)

Special effects during a film production at Martini Film Studios. (Matthew Harrington/Martini Film Studios)

In October 2021, the Vancouver Economic Commission reported the film, television, animation, and post-production industry generated a combined total of $3.4 billion for British Columbia’s economy in 2020, even with the pandemic’s impacts. In the process, it supported 65,000 jobs across BC.

Of this economic impact total, about $2.5 billion was from film and television productions, including 48 live-action scripted television series — a year-over-year increase of 30%.

BC’s industry has also been one of the main global benefactors of the increased spending on productions by streaming giants Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, and Amazon Prime. In 2020, BC accounted for about 66% of all new streaming projects in Canada.

But a severe shortage of production space in Metro Vancouver is slowing the potential growth of the local film and television production industry.

The region has one of the lowest industrial space vacancies in North America; as of the fourth quarter of 2021, according to CBRE, Metro Vancouver’s industrial vacancy rate was just 0.9%. These shortage conditions persist despite 1.2 million sq ft of new industrial space construction completed during the quarter, offset by strong levels of pre-leasing due to high demand.

Currently, in response to the demand, there is a record high of 9.4 million sq ft of industrial space under construction, with 77% of this space already pre-leased.

Exterior of a soundstage at Martini Film Studios at its existing facilities in Langley. (Martini Film Studios)

With a persistent shortage and growing industrial rents, local studio companies in recent years turned their attention to a strategy of building new purpose-built facilities on undeveloped sites.

In November 2021, for example, after conducting a months-long bidding process, the City of Burnaby announced its decision to sell an undeveloped city-owned 17-acre site in South Burnaby to Larco Investments for the construction of a new major production studio. On this site, Larco is planning to build 16 sound stages with a combined total of over 300,000 sq ft of studio floor area, plus mill shops and office space. Larco also owns and operates Bridge Studios.

Larco also has two other production studio projects in Burnaby that are in various planning phases. This includes a 19-acre site currently occupied by a large warehouse building at 3131 Lake City Way (next to SkyTrain Lake City Way Station), as well as a five-acre property at 7705 Griffiths Drive (next to SkyTrain’s Edmonds maintenance centre) that would see its self-storage structures demolished for a new purpose-built facility.

That same month, a partnership between Aquilini Development and local First Nations announced their proposed redevelopment of the 40-acre Willingdon Lands immediately west of the BCIT Burnaby campus. The project will include a 450,000 sq ft production studio within new purpose-built structures, plus 5,000 homes.

Martini Film Studios’ new campus at 216 Business Park signals the start of a production studio building boom in Metro Vancouver.

The potential growth of the company from its major expansion plans attracted David Shepheard, who became the vice president of MFS in July 2021. In Spring 2021, after five years in the role, Shepheard departed from his position as the director of creative economy and the Vancouver Film Commissioner for the Vancouver Economic Commission.

“It’s such an important moment with the expansion of the studio business and further building the brand, under the inspirational leadership of Gemma Martini and working alongside the amazing George August Patterson. Lots of exciting projects on the slate, so stay tuned,” wrote Shepheard in a LinkedIn post.

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