Villa Muse Studios

arthursimone · Post by **arthursimone** » February 27th, 2008, 11:11 am

Villa Muse Studios Town Hall Meeting
Wednesday, Feb. 27th

Greetings,

We are sending you this message to raise awareness and support of VILLA MUSE STUDIOS as we approach the March 6th City Council meeting - where a decision will be made regarding VILLA MUSE's future in Austin. As you know, VILLA MUSE is working with the City of Austin and others to clear the path to break ground later this year.

This Wednesday, 6:00pm at the Scottish Rite Auditorium (18th and Lavaca), we will be hosting a public meeting to share our vision of VILLA MUSE STUDIOS. VILLA MUSE STUDIOS will be an innovative multimedia and entertainment production and post-production facility for music, film, television, videogames, animation, advertising and magnetic media restoration.

We will share with you a short presentation about VILLA MUSE. Afterward, we will host a Q&A. All the info you need about the meeting is in the attached image. Also, if you'd like to hear a few words from Cactus Pryor about VILLA MUSE, please click this link:

http://villamuse.com/blog/townhall/

Please forward this email to as many people as you can. Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to seeing you Wednesday.

The VILLA MUSE Team

Sally · Post by **Sally** » February 27th, 2008, 11:21 pm

Whoa I was not ready for that man to start talking out of my computer. What is it with Texas and cowboys giving friendly advice.. Did you go to the meeting?

Asaf · Post by **Asaf** » February 28th, 2008, 10:05 am

Tom Booker and I went to check it out. The basic thing is this:

They need the support of the community because of a vote coming up in City Council on March 6th. The vote will basically help them speed through the process. If the Council denies them, they may start looking at other sites.

Currently what they are planning is REALLY ambitious. They are talking about a 1,100 acre site that is 14 miles east of Downtown Austin. There would be studios, recording facilities, post-production facilities, greenscreen stages, etc all in one area, which is unprecedented in the business. Also, there would be residences and businesses surrounding the studio area, in essence making a little town.

They are looking to start construction by December of this year and have operations started by December of 2009. A year turn around. That is uber-fast.

LisaJackson · Post by **LisaJackson** » February 28th, 2008, 10:24 am

This seems pretty awesome to me in how much it would bring to Austin. Although it makes me worry a little about Austin becoming L.A.ish. There's some issue with the city about Villa Muse not paying taxes. What are the pros and cons that you all see in this development?

HerrHerr · Post by **HerrHerr** » February 28th, 2008, 12:00 pm

I want to know the possible cons of this...but I don't have time to research it.

yesbut.com

Asaf · Post by **Asaf** » February 28th, 2008, 12:10 pm

Villa Muse would not be paying taxes. In fact right now, it seems that certain statutes would have those residents paying more taxes than Austin residents, which they are trying to lessen slightly and set up incentives to offset. The idea is to have them pay the same taxes as Austinites and have the companies that would bring an estimated 40,000+ jobs into the area would get a tax break, especially if they are already Texas based.

The plan that they presented seems rather foolproof. The area would have its own wastewater system and power generator and they would be expanding the highway by several lanes to accomodate the increase in traffic that would happen.

Ultimately, this seems like a very exciting proposition that could mean a huge increase of work for many of us, particularly as voice talent, motion capture models, etc.

kbadr · Post by **kbadr** » February 28th, 2008, 12:26 pm

My main concern with this project is that it get proposed with one set of ideas, and then gets continually scaled back until it doesn't represent what the original concept was (see "what the fuck are those blue things on the lamar bridge?" for a perfect example of this)

LisaJackson · Post by **LisaJackson** » February 28th, 2008, 12:40 pm

kbadr wrote:what the fuck are those blue things on the lamar bridge?"

Moments, 2003, by Carl Trominski
Reflective signs and blue lights that glow at night by solar power.

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/aipp/downloa ... ochure.pdf

nadine · Post by **nadine** » February 28th, 2008, 1:26 pm

sounds a bit like Mueller, another planned community east of Austin. also has film production stuff (like residents may find their houses used as props)

i was also at East Austin (way east, east of 183 on MLK) to pick up a table from craigslist.. and suddenly it turned from ghetto.. to ultra-modern houses, with highly slanting roofs and artsy buildings.

Miggy · Post by **Miggy** » February 28th, 2008, 1:52 pm

HerrHerr wrote:I want to know the possible cons of this

I don't think anyone is actively opposed to the idea of the studio or developing the area....it's how they are going about this and the concessions they are asking for. There is a process for expedited development review - and Villa Muse sought to bypass it....dragged their own feet, realized they couldn't, and so initiated it in December. There are criteria and a process for being released from the Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) of the city of Austin....again...they didn't want to play by the rules played by Wildhorse Crossing or Whisper Valley Ranch. Their argument is that they need to make this happen now or lose out to global competition in the creative production industries. They repeat that mantra like a drumbeat, along with the threat to build it somewhere else. It is quite like a professional sports franchise - which is also of somewhat dubious economic value after all the government subsidies are factored in.

These developers want a commitment from the city to allow them to build on a site without city review. What does the city typically review/stipulate? For one - 80% of this land is in the floodplain - how do they plan on mitigating that and what are the environmental impacts? The Environmental commission voted 7-0 to not recommend this (which is different than rejecting it). Why? No information was provided.

That's been pretty consistent in the whole process - Villa Muse hasn't substantiated their financing (letters of credit or even the names of their backers) or committed to completing the project (remember the Intel building?) or not changing substantially the plans (do we actually believe they are going to build a 70,000 seat auditorium? ACL fest only lets in 65,000 per day for their 5 stages or whatever...and there were 60,000 for the Stones concert....but those are hardly happening every day....why would we need something so big?).

kbadr wrote:My main concern with this project is that it get proposed with one set of ideas, and then gets continually scaled back until it doesn't represent what the original concept was

Basically - they can promise the moon - lovely greenspace and parks, studios, et al....but they're not committing to any of it in exchange for the right to essentially be their own taxing authority (thus lower risk for their private equity investors) on what remains an 85% residential development deal by acreage. Roads, water filtering, wastewater utilities, a k-12 school system even the houses themselves for up to 10,000 people are not being commited to be built to or exceed city of Austin standards. In 20-30 years when the non-annexation agreement ends, the City could be sitting on a substandard money pit or, more likley, a potemkin village.

...but I digress. The town hall meeting notice is all part of the bluff campaign. Villa Muse is trying to rally popular support for a creative district (yay movies!) from folks unfamiliar with the real reason for the city's hesitancy (boo bureaucracy!). Meanwhile, the city is playing their own bluff - they initiated a review of how to strategically annex the land next to SH-130...the same that is in consideration.

The end result is that both bluffers will come to the table - the new city manager Marc Ott and Jay Podolnick, the native austinite behind villa muse - and they'll hash out a compromise deal to make it happen.

From Planning commission (which also neither rejected nor supported it):
â€œI think this is something that most citizens of Austin would like to see happen. But at the same time, youâ€™ve got us in one of those awkward positions where itâ€™s almost like blackmail,â€

shando · Post by **shando** » February 28th, 2008, 8:19 pm

Mike, thank you so much for your knowledge of and insight into these issues. Nice having a planning and development person in the community.