An Inside Look at Film Studio Mimicking New York, Europe, and New Orleans

It’s no question that the film industry has been taking Atlanta by storm for over a decade and beyond. What used to be GM’s plant site located in Doraville, GA is on its way to becoming one of metro Atlanta’s largest film studios joining standing Tyler Perry Studios, Trilith, and EUE/Screen Gems. Gray TV, the team behind the Assembly Atlanta project, aims for this to be an iconic addition to Georgia televisions movie industry. The project will sprawl across 135 acres neighboring I-285 and MARTA’s Gold Line. The project broke ground in May on what’s expected to be roughly 20 Assembly Atlanta soundstages completed by June of next year. Trilith, the largest film studio in the Atlanta area, takes the lead with 24 soundstages. This would make the Assembly Atlanta the second largest once completed.

Backlots are taking shape into illustrations of different worlds. A few of the production spaces are being designed to “mimic brownstones in New York City, a grittier section with exposed fire escapes called “Tribeca,” a fancier district that will stand in for streets in European capital cities, and another area meant to be the French Quarter in New Orleans,” according to Bisnow Atlanta.

Bisnow Atlanta reports, “other sections in Assembly Atlanta’s phase one will feature a 4-acre public park, a 2-acre central lawn, two (real) Doraville police precincts, and some two miles of streetscapes.”

Gray’s chairman and CEO, Hilton Howell, told Urbanize “the goal is to make Assembly Atlanta iconic, starting with a 144-foot digital screen at the main entrance.” The digital screen tower is designed to resemble the infamous Time Square Signage in New York City.

The studios are just the beginning of an array of future projects for Gray. They plan to heavily develop more traditional mixed-use facets in Doraville. Some of those plans include 120 condos and townhomes, 800 apartments, 250,000 square feet of retail, two hotels with 350 rooms combined, and about 1 million square feet of office space.

To stay up to date with the exciting progress at Atlanta Assembly, check out their website at www.assemblyatlanta.com.