Bridge Studios' newest Burnaby film production facility eyes spring opening (RENDERINGS)

The opening of Burnaby’s newest film studio has been slightly delayed and pushed to spring.

Bridge Studios Griffiths facility located at 7705 Griffiths Dr., had a scheduled opening for February 2023, but will now likely be ready sometime in spring with a target of mid-May, due to "supply chain issues," Ron Hrynuik, Bridge Studios general manager, told Burnaby Beacon. 

The five-acre site is located across from Byrne Creek Secondary School, and will be home to four massive sound stages. 

Stages 1 and 2 will be 16,200 square feet, while stages 3 and 4 will be 15,000 sq. ft. 

The facility also includes 12,000 sq. ft. of office space, consisting of four levels.

In October 2022, Bridge Studios announced it would build 42 sound stages in the next four years in Burnaby, bringing its total number of stages in the city to 55. 

Aside from the Griffiths Studio, Bridge Studios' new facilities include Lake City (21 sound stages on 18 acres, opening in 2025) and Marine Way (16 sound stages on 18.5 acres, opening in 2026). 

The company’s flagship studio, Bridge Boundary Road, currently has 13 sound stages and will add another stage by 2026. 

Hrynuik noted that although the Griffiths location is the smallest of the four Bridge Studios sites, it will still be able to host one very large production at any time “with the ability for a new production to be starting while an existing one is finishing.” 

And the site itself comes with several impressive specs. The entire facility is powered entirely by 100% renewable BC hydroelectricity and it will be fossil fuel free. 

The four air-conditioned, soundproof sound stages have the ability to hang thousands of pounds of film sets and gear from the roofs, giving producers the power to “create productions that are out of this world,” noted Hrynuik. 

As well, sound stages 1 and 2 “are open to each other,” said Hrynuik, meaning that the full stage space (approximately 33,000 sq. ft. by 50 ft. tall) makes it the second-largest stage, volumetrically, in Canada. 

The Lake City location is set to be the biggest film and television production studio in the country.

Larco Investments Ltd., the company that owns and operates Bridge Studios, secured a $140 million deal for the Lake City Way studio in 2020.

In 2021, the City of Burnaby announced it sold a parcel of land to Larco for the Marine Way studio. Larco paid the city $136 million for the property located at 3990 Marine Way, with an adjacent road allowance, located near the Riverway Golf Course. 

Burnaby is home to over 60% of BC’s purpose-built sound stages. A number of successful Hollywood productions such as Tomorrowland and ABC’s The Good Doctor have filmed at Bridge Studios. 

With the company's expansions in Burnaby, the city is becoming a hub for film production, which Hrynuik notes are due to its close proximity to the airport, downtown Vancouver, film industry suppliers, various filming locations (oceans, mountains, farms, cities, parks), which “are key elements in efficient film making.” 

“Also being a 2.5-hour flight away and in the same time zone as Hollywood certainly doesn’t hurt either," he said.