BusinessReport.com

If it were a movie, it might be called Take Two.

A year after venting his frustration with the state film office and Division of Administration in a 225 magazine article last year, John T. Sweeney is back in town, pushing a plan to build a movie studio/film school in East Feliciana Parish between Zachary and Slaughter.

Sweeney, 51, whose home is Santa Monica, Calif., was miffed at the state over what he saw as too much red tape and glacial response to his original application to build his project, dubbed Armada Studios. He’d asked for approval for an $86 million project. Armada got conditional certification for a $14 million version just after the article came out.

State certification is necessary to take advantage of tax credits meant to grow the film industry. Sweeney was—and is—hoping to take advantage of that program, which provides a credit of 40 cents per dollar invested on the ground. Armada is a division of the International Arts & Education Foundation, whose director is Sweeney.

“We tried East Feliciana Parish before,” he says. “It just didn’t work out for reasons I don’t know or understand nor care about anymore. I consider it water under the bridge.”

Chris Stelly, head of the state film office, says the original project wasn’t approved because the plans kept changing significantly in terms of cost, ownership, location and infrastructure since Sweeney first applied in 2006. The group had variously proposed sites in Algiers, Clinton and LaPlace. To eliminate confusion, Sweeney was advised to reapply when all the details were firmed up, Stelly says.

Sweeney recently reapplied for certification—this time on a $20 million to $30 million facility on a remote site in East Feliciana just north of Zachary. Sweeney bought 165 acres for $2 million from Jimmy Thomas, uncle of East Feliciana Economic Development District chairman Larry Thomas, who’s known Sweeney for three years and worked hard to get Armada Studios built in East Feliciana.

Thomas says other sites were considered, but were either too hard to get to, too pricey or too close to subdivisions for commercial zoning. Sweeney, whose nickname for Thomas is “Larry Tenacity,” says 90% of the financing for the project lined up through a Massachusetts entity, Wooden O Films.

“It’s a division of a massive trust that doesn’t specialize in film production, but spun off a small affiliate to finance movies,” he says. “They’re more familiar with brick and mortar. It wasn’t hard to get them to support this. It’s kind of a convenient synergy.”

Sweeney is counting on East Feliciana’s Highland and Landmark banks to come through with the remaining 10%. The plan is to combine state credits on the land purchase and a bank loan and use that to leverage a line of credit to get the thing built. No shovels will hit dirt until 100% of the financing is in place, he says.

Thomas says some local developers have shown interest as well because of the retail possibilities, though the project would prefer to get the remaining 10% of financing from Highland and Landmark. The banks are talking to each other about sharing the deal, in part because it’s a fairly large investment for either one of them by itself, Thomas says.

“We’re really wanting to stay with the local banks, but it’s a little bit different cow than they’re used to herding,” he says. “In the past, the economic development district has got really good cooperation out of our banks and everything.”

Armada Studios will have three parts, as Sweeney envisions it. One part is a film school. Sweeney says he’s discussed a partnership with Louisiana Technical College to train students from Louisiana and elsewhere in the craft of filmmaking. Armada would also serve as a financer of other people’s movies.

Sweeney says Armada has partnered with a medium-sized film finance company to finance independent producers—on the condition that they use Armada’s facilities and services and train film school students. The studio would also feature state-of-the-art production and post-production facilities for filmmaking, television and commercials.

“We will have an additional arrow in our quiver separating us from the pack of other outfits building studios,” Sweeney says. “We will be able to help production companies with financing only if he shoots at our facility and trains his kids on our films, thus there’s that synergy.”

Thomas says he’s confident in the Armada business plan and believes Sweeney can deliver. The state, meanwhile, is a lot easier to work with these days, he says. Stelly, head of the film office, says he aims to expedite the review of applications.

“Anybody can apply,” he says, “though the onus of investment is always on the applicant to spend the money he says he’s going to spend.”

Thomas says his only stake in the Armada deal is—as economic development chairman—to try to bring good jobs to the parish.

“We pretty much have it up to the boat,” he says. “We’re just waiting to put the net around it.”