Mansfield officials took a first step toward a film studio development expected to bring more than 2,000 jobs to the fast-growing city south of Arlington.
The city’s staff have been working with an entity named Super Studios Mansfield LLC for several months on a mixed-use development along the city’s western border, according to city documents. Mansfield City Council approved a resolution Monday evening that will allow the city manager to authorize a development agreement.
A city agenda item states the first phase will include sound-stage clusters that will host the film industry for medium- to large-scale productions. It says many of the productions will take six months to one year before entire new sets are created and another production is underway.
The studios will help fill the need for content for streaming services such as Disney+, Hulu and Netflix, said Jason Moore, executive director of the Mansfield Economic Development Corp.
“There is a significant demand that this project alone won’t satisfy,” Moore said. “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.”
A company called Creative Tank is behind the project, Moore said. He said the project is similar to other studio clusters across the country, such as Trilith Studios in Fayetteville, Ga., near Atlanta, which has been used for shows and movies including Avengers: Endgame.
“They’re very excited about this project, they want to move really quickly,” Moore said. “Obviously, they want to get ahead of any competitors.”
Each of the development’s five planned clusters would include a 50,000-square-foot studio building and a 15,000- to 20,000-square-foot mill shop, he said. Each studio building will be able to have two 25,000-square-feet soundstages to do two different productions or scenes at a time.
The development includes plans for five sound stages as well as mill shops and technical studios and is expected to be built out over five years, according to the city.
“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 said.
The studio complex alone will total 405,200 square feet, according to a concept plan submitted to Mansfield. Hotels and retail space will span 251,850 square feet, plans show.
The developer also proposes to build restaurants, retail and hotels in the early phases, with residences planned in future phases to accommodate demand from production teams. The move is to prevent existing homes nearby to be purchased for short-term rentals for workers like actors, according to the city.
“There are over 2,000 employees, typically, on a project this size,” Moore said. “They’re all making significant dollars, but they’re not all long-term residents.”
Concept plans show 550 units of housing plus 15 “studio lofts,” a five-story, 120-room hotel with a restaurant and bar, a four-story hotel also with 120 rooms as well as 117,800 square feet of retail.
The property, also known as Mansfield Industrial Business Park, consists of about 72 acres owned by the Mansfield Economic Development Corp. on the northeast corner of Klein Tools Boulevard and Seventh Avenue.
As part of the agreement, the Mansfield Economic Development Corp. will sell the property to Super Studios Mansfield LLC for $7.3 million. The city plans to rezone the site to allow for the project.
Proposed incentives include a 10-year, 50% commercial property tax abatement beginning in 2025, a $5.6 million infrastructure grant, a construction sales tax grant of 1%, a hotel occupancy tax rebate for seven years and a mixed-beverage tax rebate through 2030.
The first phase will cost at least $70 million, according to the development agreement. Moore said the first phase will include four studio clusters.
The project will “yield a significant diversification of industry and job types to our local economy and will provide sustainable revenue sources” to the city and the Mansfield Economic Development Corp., according to city documents. Adding jobs has been a key priority for Mansfield along with diversifying its housing options to create more opportunities beyond high-end single-family homes.
Moore said the developer of the studios would like to work with the school district on a trade school to create a “workforce pipeline” for its production jobs.
