The immense scale of the future Bridge Studios Lake City campus, the largest film and television production studio in Canada, is shown in artistic renderings.
As previously reported by Daily Hive Urbanized, the new facility will be located on a 19-acre site at 3131 Lake City Way — immediately north of SkyTrain Lake City Way Station, near the southwest base of Burnaby Mountain.
Site preparation ahead for major construction activities is well underway, which will involve the complete demolition of existing warehouse buildings for a purpose-built, state-of-the-art, technologically-advanced studio. The facility is targeted for 2025 completion.
The entire campus is a single, sprawling, U-shaped building, spanning a total floor area of 1.3 million sq ft.
This includes 21 sound stages spanning a combined total of 340,000 sq ft with 40-ft clear ceiling heights, 330,000 sq ft of support space such as mill shops, wardrobe, props, set decoration, and construction bay areas, and nine full-sized production offices totalling 150,000 sq ft.
Existing condition of 3131 Lake City Way:
Existing condition of the future site of Bridge Studios Lake City at 3131 Lake City Way, Burnaby. (Google Maps)
Future condition of 3131 Lake City Way:
Artistic rendering of Bridge Studios Lake City at 3131 Lake City Way, Burnaby. (CTA Architecture & Design/Bridge Studios)
Two underground levels will provide 1,200 vehicle parking stalls to support the workforce scale and flexibility required for film and television production operations. This is in addition to 1.6 km of dedicated parking space for film trucks directly behind the sound stages.
Local developer Larco Investments owns Bridge Studios, and it acquired the Larco Way Way property in a deal worth $140 million in February 2020. In late 2021, Larco awarded a contract worth over $200 million to Bird Construction to build Bridge Studios Lake City.
Existing condition of 3131 Lake City Way:
Existing condition of the future site of Bridge Studios Lake City at 3131 Lake City Way, Burnaby. (Google Maps)
Future condition of 3131 Lake City Way:
Artistic rendering of Bridge Studios Lake City at 3131 Lake City Way, Burnaby. (CTA Architecture & Design/Bridge Studios)
This will be one of four Bridge Studios facilities in Burnaby, adding to their longtime existing 10-acre facility at 3880 Henning Drive (located on Boundary Road, near Lougheed Highway). The existing facility saw major upgrades and expansion in recent years and it is set to be further expanded in the near future.
In late 2021, the City of Burnaby selected Larco as the successful bidder to turn a City-owned, 18.5-acre vacant lot at 3990 Marine Way in the Big Bend industrial district into a film and television production studio. Larco acquired the property for $136 million.
Earlier this summer, Larco submitted its application to the municipal government to develop its newly acquired Big Bend property into a production campus with 16 sound stages, plus supporting production office, costume, mill, prop, and equipment spaces. The facility’s total floor area will be about 1.1 million sq ft.
CTA Architecture & Design is behind the design work of Bridge Studios’ recent expansions and renovations of the Henning Drive campus, and the future new campuses at Lake City and Big Bend.
Artistic rendering of Bridge Studios Lake City at 3131 Lake City Way, Burnaby. (CTA Architecture & Design/Bridge Studios)
Artistic rendering of South Bridge Studios at 7705 Griffiths Drive, Burnaby. (Prism Construction/Bridge Studios)
Another future Bridge Studios facility is also slated for a five-acre site at 7705 Griffiths Drive, next to SkyTrain’s Edmonds maintenance centre. South Bridge Studios will be a smaller facility with four sound stages, plus offices and support space, within three buildings. Altogether, this campus — to be accomplished by demolishing the self-storage structures — will have a total floor area of 115,000 sq ft.
Burnaby is already home to over 60% of BC’s purpose-built sound stages.
Metro Vancouver is in need of significant new additional soundstages to support the growing interest by Hollywood and streaming services to make their film and television productions in the region. Without these spaces, the local industry will lose more work and jobs to production hubs in California, Ontario, Georgia, and New York.
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