Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

'Baptism by fire' at Sun Center Studios in Chester Twp.

Nearly a year after work started, lawyer-developer Jeff Rotwitt's Sun Center Studios, built in Chester Township with $50 million from banks, investors and taxpayer financing, is frantic with Haddad's Inc. movie setup trailers, Sony studio executives, L.A. and New York grips, model-makers, costumers, makeup artists, caterers and other movie-industry workers and paraphernalia supporting Philadelphia native Will Smith, wife and costar Jada Pinkett-Smith, director M. Night Shyamalan, and others supporting their latest sci-fi film, After Earth. "This thing has been a baptism by fire," Rotwitt tells me, laughing.

Nearly a year after work started, lawyer-developer Jeff Rotwitt's Sun Center Studios, built in Chester Township with $50 million from banks, investors and taxpayer financing, is frantic with Haddad's Inc. movie setup trailers, Sony studio executives, L.A. and New York grips, model-makers, costumers, makeup artists, caterers and other movie-industry workers and paraphernalia supporting Philadelphia native Will Smith, wife and costar Jada Pinkett-Smith, director M. Night Shyamalan, and others supporting their latest sci-fi film, After Earth.

"This thing has been a baptism by fire," Rotwitt tells me, laughing.

In the three indoor-stadium-sized studio buildings are shops building spaceships and alien models, a department store's worth of wardrobe, Smith's custom-built shiny-gray RV with side extensions (banished from New York as too wide for city streets), and boards groaning with warm meat and vegetables for hungry crews, prepared on site, in field kitchens open to the misty morning.

"They've been here since October. They'll be here til July," at least, says Rotwitt.

The number of out-of-town workers on site has Rotwitt performing a delicate labor role, familiar from his past as a developer or developer's rep on projects like Philadelphia's high-rent Mellon tower and Atlantic City's Ocean One mall and the controversial Family Court.

He's been talking to local Carpenters' Union chief Ed Coryell and other trade unions about possible apprenticeship programs that would help ensure a permanent Philadelphia trained labor force to balance the out-of-state plates crowding the neatly-paved lot, which was empty rubble outside the vacant former Sunoco employee-recreation and sports center just a year ago.

Local jobs were, after all, part of the justification for state aid to this private-sector project: "If I can develop a pool of experienced workers they don't have to fly guys in or put them up," Rotwitt says. "Our guys can go home to Bridesburg every night."

How're finances? An original equity investor, Hal Katersky's Pacifica Ventures, is no longer in the deal. Pacifica didn't respond to inquiries.

"We are positively-cash-flowing," says Rotwitt. "I have to raise an additional $40 million" for the project's planned next stages, including the studio-tourism center that he hopes will help Sun Center pay during production downtimes, like at night. He's also looking for expansion space in the adjoining industrial park.

Sun Center wants to attract a digital-production center. Rotwitt says he's been approached about putting satellite locations in other states. Maybe Atlantic City? Casino owners and state officials there are looking for glamour to draw tourists that might replace lost gambling profits.

In Harrisburg, Rotwitt is lobbying for a longer-term state movie tax-credit law that will help studios plan future productions here. Louisiana is a model, Rotwitt says.

Rotwitt's studio is not the only game in town. USA Networks' Sigourney Weaver-as-a-Hillary Clinton-type TV series, is shooting at a site in Southwest Philadelphia. (USA Networks' and Weaver's publicists didn't respond to calls for comment.) The NBC series pilot, Do No Harm, with Phylicia Rashad, has been shooting around Rittenhouse Square.

Who's coming to Sun Center next? Depends on what's ready and willing to move in when Shyamalan, Smith and Sony pack and go.

"Hollywood is skeptical of when people say they are going to leave," Rotwitt says. "But sometime in the next 90 days, we'll pick up another project."

Sounds high

Is Philadelphia-based discount chain store operator Five Below worth $1 billion? The chain "is in talks with bankers about an initial public offering," Reuters said last week, citing unnamed sources. With earnings (before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization) around $50 million, and assuming rapid growth, the chain could be worth up to 20 times earnings, Reuters claimed.

Five Below didn't return calls. The chain, run by former Zany Brainy owners Tom Vellios and David Schlessinger, is backed by LLR Partners of Philadelphia and Boston's Advent International.

Contact Joseph N. DiStefano at 215-854-5194 or JoeD@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @PhillyJoeD.