$700M Studio Campus Planned South Of Atlanta By Former Republican Campaign Operative
The onetime chief of staff of Newt Gingrich's 2012 presidential campaign and former talent agency head is pursuing a 3.2M SF film and television production campus, supported by a mix of other uses, 30 miles south of Atlanta.
This is the second attempt at developing a massive film campus in Georgia for Patrick Millsaps, the CEO of Kane Studio. He planned an even larger campus in Albany in South Georgia, which fell apart in 2020.
Last week, Millsaps filed an application with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for a $700M campus that would include movie studios, on-site food service, retail space, a private road system and private utilities on 1,600 acres in the city of Chattahoochee Hills. The southern Fulton County development is nicknamed "Project Rosebud," according to the Development of Regional Impact application, a fitting moniker for a film studio of epic ambition.
“Our intention is to build a world-class television and film production facility while respecting the very special aesthetic and quality of life the incredible and visionary citizens of Chattahoochee Hills have created,” Millsaps told Bisnow in an email. “Our priority is to be a good neighbor that will not only increase the tax base for the city but to provide local high-paying jobs as well as training and educational opportunities.”
A former partner with the law firm Hall Booth Smith in Atlanta, Millsaps was Gingrich's chief of staff in 2012 and ran a firm called Londonderry, which financed and produced original media content, from 2016 to 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was the executive producer of the 2015 film I’ll See You In My Dreams starring Blythe Danner and Sam Elliott.
Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue credited Millsaps as being instrumental in helping design the state's tax incentive program for film and television productions, which has been credited with fueling the growth of the media production industry in the state.
“Patrick Millsaps understood early the benefits for Georgia aggressively pursuing the entertainment industry as an economic development project. The combination of his business, political and legal skills were helpful in making tax credits a reality in Georgia," Perdue told Deadline in a statement in 2014.
In 2020, Millsaps and his Kane Studio were pursuing a similar type of project in Albany, roughly 200 miles south of Atlanta, but it never got off the ground after the pandemic hit, the Observer reported. Kane was looking to build 1.2M SF of soundstages, production offices and auxiliary space in the Albany studio project on 3,000 acres.
Millsaps told the Chattahoochee Hills City Council during a presentation in July that Kane Studio was “about to pull the trigger” on a project in 2020, but that Covid “shut the world down."
A source with knowledge of the Albany proposal told Bisnow that Kane and Millsaps dropped the project after failing to generate interest or investment in a studio project three hours outside of Atlanta. Millsaps didn't answer questions about the Albany project.
The first phase of Project Rosebud will focus on 500K SF of “mini studio” space spread out in multiple “production pods” in the center of the property, a process that would take four years to complete at a cost of about $1B, Millsaps told Chattahoochee Hills City Council members.
“We already have takers for that amount of square footage. That gets us out of the gate,” Millsaps told the council, according to the minutes of the July meeting. "Hopefully, we have that by August 2023."
In the DRI filing, Kane pegged the estimated value of the project at build-out at $700M and projected a 2029 completion data.
Millsaps told the city council that he doesn’t plan to disturb too much of the 1,600 acres, especially since many natural features will be useful to production companies as set pieces. He added that he intends to allow city residents access to the property.
“Our hope is that when you pass the property from the road, all you’re ever going to see is our farm and perhaps something that looks like a little European village,” Millsaps told the council. “If we do it right, that’s all you’re going to see."
In his emailed statement to Bisnow Millsaps said that if the council approves his plans, "we will ensure that this project is beneficial to all stakeholders and have a positive impact for the city, county and region."
