Film and Television

We are fond of relating the history of Vancouver Film Studios (to whomever will listen) as a happy accident. Truth be told, about fifteen years ago we realized that there was no conceivable way to get permission to build huge condominium towers on over thirty acres of industrial land in Vancouver so we had to think about alternatives. We had been reluctant landlords to film and television tenants for years, putting them in empty warehouses while we fretted about finding a long term real user. Along came a twenty-one year-old Sacha McLean who examines the mixed bag of uses and historical revenues and makes a case for taking a risk on short term rentals to the film and television industry and making them our first priority. It turned out we had comparable occupancy at much better rates and within three years of his initial proposal to the family, we built our first six sound stages and soon expanded to ten. The next lesson (pay attention you would-be film studio moguls) was that you can't really make much money on the buildings alone -- the key to this business is not real estate: it is services. Production facilities and sevices are complementary and we have put together a package for our customers that we think is one of the best in the world. To learn more about our single largest business, please follow the links to the right.