Sunderland City Council will invite bids next month for the £15m enabling works package to prepare the former Crown Works shipyard site for a major film and TV studio scheme.
FulwellCain Studios, a joint venture between global entertainment company Fulwell 73 and Cain International, aims to build the £475m Crown Works Studios on land stretching up from Pallion Shipyard on the banks of the river Wear.
It gained planning back in the spring and now the council will make the site shovel ready for building works to start after receiving funding from the Government.
Enabling works include demolition of the existing infrastructure on the site and backfilling the site with crushed aggregates to provide levels and natural drainage.
There is the construction of some minor structures as part of the required works.
In all, the studio development will deliver around 1.7m sq ft film industry hub at Pallion with 20 sound stages suitable for major feature film and HETV productions.
Crown Works – named after the former shipyard that once stood on the site – will be transformational for the city’s economy, cultivating an eco-system on a scale not seen since Nissan’s investment in Sunderland in the 1980s, while meeting the growing demand for studio space in the UK.
First phase development
Phase 1 will deliver around 360,000 sq ft. This will be spread across four sound stages, with a production office attached to each, six production support workshop buildings, a gateway building, a 350 space multi-storey car park, a substation and waste centre and ancillary infrastructure.
More details are available from the council with the bid document due out on the Open portal from 15 July
