A $450 million project could bring Hollywood and hundreds of homes to this Gloucester County borough
The project, which could bring 400 permanent jobs to Pitman, is moving ahead after the recent death of one of Americana Studio's founders.
A $450 million television and movie studio and hundreds of new homes could fill a long-vacant Sony manufacturing plant in Gloucester County over the next three years. The project is moving forward, developers say, even after an executive of the studio died this month.
The proposed 76-acre Americana Studios District is in early stages in Pitman. Developer SORA Northeast plans to purchase the property — at 400 N. Woodbury-Glassboro Rd., just minutes from Pitman Jr./Sr. High School and Rowan University — in 2027, according to the firm’s founder Gregory Filipek.
Americana Studios, a new media company registered in New Jersey in September, will have six 32,000-square-foot soundstages on campus. It is led by Lou Fusaro, a Jersey native and Los Angeles resident who helped produce shows including Californication, House of Lies, and Miami Vice.
The studio will be open to hosting all types of productions, Fusaro said.
Mark Roling, a former Warner Bros. executive, was the new company’s studio operations president until he died on Nov. 3, days after Pitman announced the studio proposal. Fusaro met Roling while they worked on The Drew Carey Show together.
“To our team he brought phenomenal expertise and shaped how Americana Studios will come to be. As the studio continues to be developed, his memory will be in its DNA,” Fusaro wrote in an email.
It’ll likely take months before the project breaks ground, and Filipek estimated it’ll take about three years before Gloucester County residents see something resembling a finished product.
In addition to a production studio, the campus will feature a hotel, restaurants, about 65 single-family homes, 80 townhouses, 50 condos, and 300 apartments, including workforce housing for employees. Those numbers are still estimates, Filipek and his SORA partner Jeff Sublinsky said. SORA will likely demolish the majority of the current building on the property, where workers once made CDs.
“This is a real estate development project that has a studio component to it,” Filipek said. “Not a studio project with real estate. That’s how it gets financed.”
Pitman’s Sony plant hasn’t operated since 2011. The electronics company sold the property to Tony Argento, a Brooklyn businessman known for production studio company Broadway Stages, for $3 million in 2013.
The building has sat mostly unused, Mayor Michael Razze said. Pitman, which lost jobs and tax revenue from the Sony plant’s closure, was desperate to fill the space with something profitable.
Razze said the project will likely bring about 400 temporary and 400 permanent jobs to the borough and give local high school and Rowan students an inside look into the film industry. A presentation on the project proposed internship and training opportunities, and Razze said he’s already had conversations about adding a film curriculum to Pitman’s high school.
“Coming off of Route 55, this is a gateway to our community,” Razze said. “We wanted to do something worthy of that status.”
Over the years, Pitman has included the property in redevelopment plans and consulted with nearly two dozen developers with varying ideas for a takeover of the building. But nothing ever stuck, Razze said.
That is, until Americana Studios was pitched. Filipek said Argento will likely have a stake in the business as part of the deal.
Argento did not return requests for comment through his production company. It’s unclear exactly how Argento used the property.
The housing expansion aspect is a win for Pitman, too. As a borough of 8,700 with little room for new homes, the property is a unique opportunity for both new and long-time Pitman residents, Razze said.
“We have a lot of residents in the community that have raised their families and don’t want to continue to maintain a 4-bedroom, 3-bedroom house. They want something smaller but don’t want to leave Pitman,” Razze said. “They could sell their home, maybe to a young family coming in with kids in the school system. It’s a great benefit across the board.”
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