Hollywood in Mansfield? Film production pitched south of Arlington

Officials in Mansfield are considering plans to develop a film studio in the fast-growing city south of Arlington.

Los Angeles-based the Creative Tank, doing business as Super Studios Mansfield LLC has proposed building a mixed-use development with sound stages for the film industry along the western border of the city, the Dallas Morning News reported. 

Plans also call for 550 multifamily units as well as 15 “studio lofts” and a 120-room hotel.

Mansfield City Council recently approved a resolution allowing the city manager to enter a development agreement. 

The first phase of construction would include sound-stage clusters for medium- to large-scale productions. The studios would provide locations for production companies, said Jason Moore, executive director of the Mansfield Economic Development Corporation.

“There is a significant demand that this project alone won’t satisfy,” Moore told the outlet. “In fact, this project could be replicated even more than once in Mansfield because of that demand that’s there. There’s a lot of money in Hollywood. There’s a lot of private equity; that’s how a lot of these projects get funded.”

The Creative Tank’s Mansfield idea is being billed as a similar project to Trilith Studios in Fayetteville, Georgia, which has been used in blockbuster films like “Avengers: Endgame.”

“They’re very excited about this project. They want to move really quickly,” Moore told the outlet. “Obviously, they want to get ahead of any competitors.”

Plans call for five clusters, each with a 50,000-square-foot studio building and a 15,000- to 20,000-square-foot mill shop, allowing for each cluster to have two 25,000-square-foot soundstages to film two scenes simultaneously.

Moore said the project, which will be built over the course of five years, would ultimately create more than 2,000 jobs for locals and out-of-towners.

“This is a several-hundred-million-dollar project on the tax rolls for this property, not only property tax, but tremendous sales tax generation,” Moore told the outlet. “There are over 2,000 employees, typically, on a project this size. They’re all making significant dollars, but they’re not all long-term residents.”

 — Victoria Pruitt