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Update: Medient, Hollywood Studio that produced "Yellow," Headed to Savannah Suburb

UPDATED March 19, 2013 - The Hollywood company cloaked behind "Project Magnolia" is Medient Studios, which released "Yellow" last year. Here's a link to Savannah Morning News' coverage from today's meeting of the Effingham County Industrial Development Authority.

"A large movie studio" appears headed for Effingham County in Southeast Georgia, near Savannah.

The Effingham County Industrial Development Authority will consider the "Project Magnolia memorandum of understanding" at a special meeting at 8 a.m. tomorrow, reports G.G. Rigsby of the Savannah Morning News.

While details remain a state secret, Rick Lott, executive director of the Effingham Chamber of Commerce, tells savannahnow.com that his county would get "a large movie studio."

"That's all I'm at liberty to say," Lott told Rigsby this afternoon.

The reporter did get IDA board member Charles Hinely to say Project Magnolia is "a big project" that would be located on the authority's tract on I-16 (see photo).

Stay tuned. Looks like more good news resulting from Georgia's aggresive tax incentives for movie and TV production in the state.

 

 

Florida Developer Wants to Finish What Actress Kim Basinger Started

By Tony Wilbert, Wilbert News Strategies LLC

ATLANTA (Dec. 28, 2009) - A Florida developer apparently wants to pick up where Georgia beauty Kim Basinger left off.

Halvorsen Development of Boca Raton, Fla., has filed plans for a 1.4 million-square-foot development near Chateau Elan at Ga. 211 and I-85 in Braselton, Ga., according to the Georgia Developments of Regional Impact (DRI) Web site. The proposed project, dubbed "Braselton 1" for now, would comprise 832,960 square feet of retail, a 16-screen movie theater, two hotels, 322,000 square feet of "future" office space, two restaurants and 10 outparcels.

Braselton gained national notoriety in 1989, when actress Kim Basinger joined forces with the Ameritech Pension fund to acquired the town for $20 million. Together, they had big plans for turning the small town into a major tourist attraction, but they never materialized. Since then, Braselton has emerged as a player in the regional distribution center market.

Halvorsen, whose own Web site features photos of Publix-anchored strip centers and Publix shopping carts, has requested that the land be rezoned and annexed, according to the DRI filing. The overall project would be completed by 2014.