Jack O'Halloran, Chairman of Long Beach Studios, Tells LBReport.com: Doubting Thomases Will Eat Crow...Long Beach Studios Is Going To Happen...100% Guarantee
(Jan. 22, 2010) -- "All the people who are Doubting Thomases can get their crow machines out and start eating crow. Long Beach Studios is going to happen, and that's a 100% guarantee. It's going to happen."
So said Jack O'Halloran, chairman of Long Beach Studios, to LBReport.com on Friday night (Jan. 22). We provide on-demand audio below.
LBReport.com spotted Mr. O'Halloran dining at Bouchee's Bistro at Smooth's in downtown Long Beach...and we asked him if he'd update us on the ambitious Long Beach Studios plan to turn the Boeing/former Douglas) aircraft plant into a state of the art Hollywood-style movie/TV studio complex. He agreed.
Mr. O'Halloran invited us to sit down at his table. We took out our audio recorder and invited Mr. O'Halloran to say whatever he'd like the public to know about the studio plan at present. We provide below Mr. O'Halloran's words exactly as he stated them, no edits.
To launch LBReport.com on-demand audio, click here.
Plans for the studio were first reported by LBReport.com in June 2008. Three months later in September 2008, a news conference was held on the Boeing site with Mayor Bob Foster and Mr. O'Halloran...an event that coincided with the start of Wall Street's financial meltdown which brought a national economic downturn.
The Long Beach Studios project fell out of escrow in early 2009...but Mr. O'Halloran, whose acting credits include "Non" in Superman feature films, has consistently said the project will happen.
In October 2009. LBReport.com learned that a letter was delivered by LB Studios reps to LB city officials on the matter.
Meanwhile, after the project fell out of escrow, Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske (in whose district the Boeing plant is located) pressed city officials to do more to encourage Tesla Motors, a cutting-edge electric car maker, to locate to the site.
The site isn't City Hall's to convey. It's private property owned by Boeing Realty, and any deal would require agreement between the landowner (Boeing) and Tesla or Hollywood Studios. However LB city officials have offered Tesla economic incentives to locate to LB and pointed out the area's Enterprise Zone benefits. [Presumably, similar Enterprise Zone benefits would be available for Long Beach Studios...although there's no public word on any City Hall-offered incentives for the movie studio.]
Downey and Long Beach are reportedly finalists for the Tesla plant; Tesla hasn't announced its choice of location publicly...but Downey officials have made guarded statements to the effect that they believe they've got Tesla.
5th dist. Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske, in whose district the studio would be located, has said that "Any business that will bring jobs to Long Beach is most welcome."
During his Jan. 2010 State of the City message, Mayor Foster summed-up City Hall uncertainty about what will eventually end up on the Boeing site, contrasting his otherwise definite statements about the city's future with a shoulder-shrugging comment to the effect that either an auto plant or a movie studio would be on the site (drawing light laughter from the audience, and the Mayor).
The Boeing site is near the 405 freeway and Long Beach Airport...and within the "thirty mile zone" ("studio zone" thirty-mile radius of Beverly Blvd/La Cienega Blvd in L.A.) used by entertainment industry unions to determine rates and work rules.
Long Beach has multiple nearby filming backdrops within a compact area (urbanized downtown with older buildings and new high rises, a beachfront and parkland open space). CSI Miami is among the prime time TV shows frequently seen shooting around town.
LB once had a movie studio presence...but that was when Buster Keaton and his contemporaries filmed in the 1920's at Balboa Studios (7th St. near Alamitos Ave.), now home to the Museum of Latin American Art.
