Chalmette and New Orleans East studios capitalizing on growth
At a time when New Orleans East is searching for its niche in New Orleans’ economic landscape, one business has found a way to make use of hundreds of thousands of square feet of unused space in St. Bernard Parish to energize the local film industry.
A nola.com story covers how The Ranch Film Studios has taken off and has hosted filming for well known movies like ‘Deepwater Horizon’. While the studio has been a boon to businesses in the community, it seems to have started unexpectedly, as a film location manager stumbled upon an abandoned Sav-A-Center store in Chalmette that had been vacant since Hurricane Katrina. The studios have even expanded to a nearby abandoned Lowe’s.
New Orleans East has its own ties to the film industry in the form of Starlight Studios, a 50-acre site located at 4301 A Poche Court West, off of Old Gentilly Road, with two sound stages (31,000 and 13,000 square feet) and two floors of office space. Three warehouses of production space (25,000, 18,000 and 5,000 square feet) and an outdoor area for filming forest scenes round out its offerings. The location was also featured in an earlier nola.com story.
Starlight Studios offers filming in a secluded location away from traffic and congestion, yet is only 15 minutes from Downtown/CBD and 12 minutes from Lakefront Airport.