New Bigfoot Studios and Soundstages at South Road Properties

Cebu City signs up movie production facility
By Irene Sino Cruz
Visayas Bureau
Last updated 07:09pm (Mla time) 02/25/2007

CEBU CITY -- After a long wait, the Cebu City government finally signed up the first locator in the South Road Properties (SRP), the 300-hectare reclaimed area the city owns.

Bigfoot Entertainment (BFE) signed last week a 25-year lease agreement for a two-hectare area at the SRP, where the company plans to build a multi-million-dollar movie production facility.

The company plans to set up several sound stages, including a movie studio, in the area to attract Hollywood film companies planning location shoots outside of the United States.

A Bigfoot executive earlier explained that a bigger sound stage could accommodate large movie sets. The company said the investment in the expansion facility at the SRP could reach $10 million.

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the BFE was planning to acquire another 16 hectares for an integrated development.

"I'm more excited about what Bigfoot intends to do at SRP because Bigfoot is taking very aggressive posture pioneering new things to put us on the map," Osmeña said in an interview.

He said the company planned to transform the 16 hectares of prime waterfront area into an integrated development, including a mega yacht club.

Osmeña said Bigfoot's planned development would also include a retirement facility, residential condominium, hotels, offices and a bus terminal when fully built up.

He said the project would be implemented within three to four years.

The BFE also expressed willingness to work with real estate developers such as Filinvest Land Inc., Osmeña said.

A Brunei investor was also eyeing a hotel project as part of Bigfoot's complex, he added.

Osmeña said that upon the finalization of the purchase agreement, the city would ask Bigfoot to pay 40 percent of the total purchase price with the balance payable over four years,.

The mayor said Bigfoot decided to lease the two hectares first because it could not wait for the bidding process to be completed and it wanted to start with its film production facility immediately.

Bigfoot has two soundstages in its Mactan facility, which cost over $2.1 million (about P99.4 million). A sound stage is a large soundproof studio usually used for filming motion pictures. However, the Bigfoot sound stages in Mactan could only accommodate filming of music videos and advertisements.

Joel Mari Yu, managing director of the Cebu Investment Promotion Center, said the lease agreement on the two-hectare area would be terminated upon the approval of the purchase of the lot, along with the 16 other hectares.

Earlier, Osmeña came under fire from his critics over the huge debt the city incurred to finance the reclamation project, which cost at least P2 billion, and the capability of the city to pay off the loan.

The efforts to market the SRP to investors hit a snag when the Talisay City claimed it owned part of the reclaimed area.

The issue was settled when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued Proclamation No 843, transferring the ownership of the SRP to the Cebu City government and declaring the area as alienable and disposable.

The city plans to sell parcels of the area to pay off portions of the loan, which is payable over a 30-year period. The selling price of SRP land starts at P10,000 per square meter.