Pigmental Studios has signed an agreement to purchase a 67-acre tract at the old St. Marys Airport as the site for a new movie campus where animated films and other projects will be produced.
James Coughlin, executive director of the Camden County Joint Development Authority, said representatives with the movie company first visited the site late last year for a groundbreaking ceremony for a planned 160-slip marina at the site of the old Gilman Paper Co. about a mile away.
Coughlin said the studio, with other facilities in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., has also rented a vacant church building about a block away where a 9,000-square-foot athletic building will be renovated into a film studio. Office space is also being built in the church building.
The long-term plans are for a film campus on the airport site that includes multiple buildings for an animation studio, artist facilities and other support services.
The number of employees on site will vary depending on the different stages of a project, he said.
Coughlin credited Jim Jacoby, the Atlanta developer who is developing the old paper mill site that has been vacant since Durango-Georgia Paper Co. declared bankruptcy in 2002. See more here.
