COVER STORY, OCTOBER 2007

AUSTIN’S NEW MUSE
A pioneering project is bringing the entertainment and commercial industries together in a big way near Austin.
Dan Marcec

Villa Muse will feature 1.3 million square feet of studio space, in addition to 330,000 square feet of support office space for those studios.

A city where creativity and community go hand in hand, Austin, Texas, is home to a world-famous live music scene, a bourgeoning film industry and a top-end video game industry. With many businesses in these creative and entertainment industries forced to leave their homes in Texas due to lack of infrastructure, the creators of Villa Muse saw a different option: develop a place where all these businesses can come together.

The $2.5 billion, 1,011-acre project — located in eastern Travis County outside the city of Austin — will feature a 1.3 million-square-foot studio component, in addition to 330,000 square feet of support office space for those studios. Among the spaces available will be full motion picture and television production sound stages as well as full recording studios.

A project of this sort certainly is unique to the state of Texas, if not anywhere in the United States outside of New York and Los Angeles. However, the idea didn’t stop there. In order to engender a truly creative community, residential, retail, office and educational components are being constructed around the centrally located studio space.

“Many of the creative industries here in Texas have grown well, but have grown separately, and Villa Muse is about the convergence of technologies across those businesses,” says Hiten Patel, financial consultant for Villa Muse. “The beauty of the residential and the commercial outside the complex is that you hope for a conglomeration of people in separate industries not only seeing each other on the lots and in the studio, but actually living together and working with each other in that way; we want to become a gravitational pull for people who want to thrive in these industries.”

With 2,500 multifamily residential units, 2,200 single family homes and an additional 1.3 million square feet of office and retail space standing separately from the studio space, the project is much more than just a business venture for the entertainment community. Retaining 30 percent green space over the acreage and creating a town center district for retail all with immediate access to some of the best studio space in the country is quite unique.

The traditional live/work/play components of Villa Muse are designed in a very untraditional way as well. Variant architecture throughout the project was created to allow greater capacity for on-site filming in a real cityscape; in other words, instead of having to move in and out of the studio to the city in order to film different parts of a motion picture or television show, everything is at the fingertips of the production team.

Obviously, a project of this size and scope did not come without challenges. Since the city of Austin is very restrictive in its development codes, the type of land needed for Villa Muse was largely unavailable.

“The project is literally an island surrounded by undevelopable land, which allows it the privacy and security it needs as well,” says Jim Carpenter, president of Carpenter & Associates, which is responsible for constructing the project. “Most of the soil in this area is tough, and to build utilities underneath soundstages with huge footprints one would need to compact and construct the earth; thus, finding the right spot was a major part of the process.”

Another major challenge was the political process. Though Villa Muse has governmental support, no county government was equipped to handle a project of this scale. Large facilities such as the $5 billion Samsung property have gone up in the area, but a master-planned community of this magnitude was unheard of. The solution to that problem was to demonstrate the expansive economic and socioeconomic contributions it will have on the region, and to work with the political authorities to build it to very specific guidelines.

The most unique component of the development, the studio space, is broken down into three zones: administrative, including all offices and support offices; the sound stages and storage for sets and wardrobe; and the recording zone, where music recording and postproduction for film and TV will take place. Yet, even with the variety and expansiveness of this space, everything remains within a 5-minute walk, at everyone’s fingertips.

As far as the portioning of the studio space goes, Villa Muse offers multiple options. “If someone is looking for a motion picture stage, for example, they might rent a space for preproduction, and then as time goes on, they can add what they need for a full-blown production as needed,” says Tom Copeland, senior vice president for the film division at Villa Muse. “Eventually there will be a facilities manager for the studios akin to someone who runs a shopping center, dealing with both individual stages and full-time tenants.”

In all, Villa Muse will feature 10 sound stages to be built in 2 phases, with one of the largest in the world (65,000 square feet) being completed with Phase I. In addition, two stages measuring 40,000 square feet and 36,000 square feet both will have the option to be used in full or to be divisible in half.

“Almost every major Hollywood studio has made films in Texas, and almost every major broadcast network has shot a television show or pilot here, meaning there’s a lot of work being done from the outside alongside our homegrown talent,” says Paul Alvarado, vice president of Villa Muse. “We’ve already spoken with people friendly to this concept, and we’re very excited to build on what is already here, providing the infrastructure to create a world-class unique space here in Austin.”

As one of the fastest growing major cities in the United States, Austin is poised for big things, and Villa Muse’s impact on the expanding market will be huge. “There’s always a tendency for a competitive business to be lured away, but the employment force driving Villa Muse is unique in that it doesn’t clash with other industries here,” says Carpenter. “The entertainment industry will always be popular, lucrative and ongoing, so we think this project should not be susceptible to normal cycles of development, providing important economic impact for the city and state, while at the same time giving people a great place to live, work and enjoy themselves.”


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