Patrick Mulhearn, executive director of Celtic Media Centre, says executives at the Baton Rouge studio are still deciding what to do with the 10-acre site and 63,000-square-foot building they purchased earlier this month from Crescent Crown Distributing.
“We do have a couple of industry-related prospective tenants and we’re working on leases, but we’re still kind of making our final plans for it,” Mulhearn says. “We still need to have some discussions about that, and I think we’ll probably have something to announce in a couple of weeks.”
Celtic acquired the property and building at 9550 Dawnadele Ave.—which served as Crescent Crown’s headquarters up until it recently relocated to a new facility at 9101 Tom Drive—for $3.2 million. The property is located adjacent to the Celtic facilities, which includes more than 150,000 square feet of stage space and 90,000 square feet of gated office space over roughly 30 acres.
“It definitely gives us more options with productions, whether we want to use part of it for building sets or something else,” Mulhearn says. “But the specifics are still being worked out.”
Celtic has been aggressive about acquiring adjacent properties to its film and TV production studio, which is the largest in the state. In 2013, it closed on a $2.5 million deal to purchase about 6.5 acres of adjoining land from Costco. In 2009, it paid $1 million for the former headquarters of the local chapter of the American Red Cross, which is also located next to the studio.
—Steve Sanoski
