Most of New Jersey’s big studio projects have landed in North and Central Jersey. Now South Jersey may be getting one of its own.
Americana Studios Holdings and redeveloper SORA Northeast announced plans this week to turn the former Sony plant property in Pitman into the Americana Studios District, a $450 million film, television and recording production campus built into a mixed-use neighborhood.
The plans were unveiled Monday night at a Pitman Council meeting, which ended with the signing of a redevelopment agreement.
The news was first reported by 42 Freeway, the South Jersey news site, which attended the meeting. The agreement isn’t final approval, 42 Freeway noted, and no construction timeline has been announced.
The proposed 76-acre site, where Sony once made CDs and DVDs, goes well beyond soundstages, according to reports.
Along with a studio complex for television, film and recording, it calls for condos, townhomes, single-family homes, retail, restaurants, a hotel, a living museum and public gathering spaces, according to 42 Freeway’s account of the presentation.
Homes and shops would line Woodbury-Glassboro Road, with the production facilities toward the rear and an entrance from Lambs Road, near Route 55. The larger soundstages would be designed to look like an old-time Hollywood movie lot rather than plain warehouse boxes.
The production campus itself would be closed to the public. But the developers described ways the two worlds could mix, including a commissary dining area open to visitors and theater-like spaces where people could watch television being made. Plans also show an amphitheater-style area with a large covered outdoor screen, landscaped walkways and, subject to environmental approvals, walking trails near protected wetlands at the back of the site.
SORA, based in Sewell, would run the studio grounds.
The developers say the project would create more than 400 permanent jobs and about 400 temporary jobs, direct and indirect, and pump more than $150 million a year into the local economy. They also plan to give students a chance to learn the business with exposure to working professionals.
The developers said they were drawn to Pitman by the size of the property, its access to Route 55, Philadelphia and the rest of South Jersey, and the state’s generous tax incentives for film and television production.
Lou Fusaro, President and co-founder of Americana Studios Holdings, said the goal is a destination, not just a studio.
“We’re building a destination for film, television, and creative enterprise — where opportunity, innovation, and talent come together,” he said in a statement.
