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Ranch Film Studios to convert old Arabi Ford factory into new studio

Waggenspack has grand plans for the building but says the historic significance of the Ford factory will not be forgotten.

NEW ORLEANS — A New Orleans area film studio is looking to expand. The Ranch Film Studios in Chalmette wants to convert and remodel an old Ford Model T assembly plant into their latest studio. 

Along with his partners, including Sidney Torres III, The Ranch’s CEO Jason Waggenspack is looking to redevelop the building into a content creation hub for film and television stages and space for tech, gaming and music.

“This is a 225,000-square-foot building built in 1921 by Albert Kahn and Henry Ford himself,” said Waggenspack. “It sits on 27 acres and we feel we have a blank canvas here to really expand far beyond the building.”

The old Ford factory is just down the road from The Ranch Studios. The site used to be two big box stores, blighted by Hurricane Katrina.

“A bit of our development model has been taking over blighted property,” said Waggenspack. “The Ranch Film Studios was a former blighted Lowe’s and a former blighted Save A’ Center and we noticed that it was a really well-equipped way of building a film studio so we decided to take that into the Ford plant.”

The company is looking to raise $70 million for the project, a daunting number to hear for most of us but Waggenspack said the entertainment industry has taken off so much in Louisiana they have to expand.

“If you look at the fact that we’ve got one billion dollars in sales from the film industry, how can we not take advantage of expanding and allow for more of these tens of thousands of jobs to hopefully happen right here in this backyard of St. Bernard Parish,” said Waggenspack. 

Waggenspack has grand plans for the building but says the historic significance of the Ford factory will not be forgotten. In fact, quite the opposite, it will serve as inspiration.

“We want to keep the essence of what happened here,” said Waggenspack. “So obviously the historical preservation of this building is of the utmost importance and we want to hopefully have thousands of people working here on a regular basis, like they were in the 1920s.

Waggenspack says the whole project should take about three years to complete. The company would not say how much they paid for the building.

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