Las Cruces City Council approved the initial funding that will go toward a future soundstage in Las Cruces.
The City Council voted to accept a state legislative appropriation of $402,000 that will be put toward building a soundstage in Las Cruces. Irene Oliver-Lewis, Vice President of Film Las Cruces says it’s exciting to see the first of the funding.
“It’s a reality,” Oliver-Lewis said. ‘You know that it’s been appropriated for a while, but to actually receive it means that we can actually start planning, looking at space, looking at buildings, looking at architectural. I mean it’s the beginning of those ideas that we have, so it’s very exciting.”
City Councilor Gill Sorg says building a soundstage is part of the economic development plan for the future of Las Cruces.
“It provides economic opportunities,” Sorg said. “Economic development, more jobs, and a diverse type of job, higher paying jobs, that’s the key, higher paying jobs.
Preliminary estimates from city staff to the city’s economic development committee show that the total cost of the soundstage could be between 7 and 8 million dollars. Irene Oliver- Lewis says that is the initial estimates, but she expects the costs to go down as planning continues.
She says this funding is just the start, and they are looking at additional sources of revenue.
“This isn’t going to build a building,” Oliver-Lewis said. “This is the beginning of building a building, but we don’t have an end number yet, and I don’t want to scare the community or say oh my god, what are we doing with this amount of money, we don’t even have that yet, but they need to know that we are all being very frugal, but also very competitive. That we want to make sure that we build a soundstage that is competitive in the state.”
City Councilor Greg Smith says it’s important that the city spread its economic development money around to different projects, and they are looking at cutting down the costs from the initial figures.
“At this point,” Smith said. “We’re looking at how to we get an appropriate facility, in other words something that will be a draw, and will appropriately function in more the $4-5 million dollar range. Certainly, if that takes off and that is working than more can go in that direction in the future. But at this point, we really have to find a way to make it work for less. I just don’t see enough happening at this point to say, yeah we’re going to sink a major portion of the money that we are putting into economic development in that one direction.”
Councilor Gill Sorg agrees, and says he’s confident that at the right price, the city will see a return on their investment.
“If we spend the right amount of money,” Sorg says. “Not too much, but not too little. We expect to have a film studio, or a television studio that will be very productive and that will get a good return on the investment for sure.”
The city is exploring partnerships with Arrowhead and NMSU in turning the future soundstage into a creative campus, and hopes to see the building started in the next 2-3 years.
