East of Atlanta, the metro’s latest movie studio complex is scheduled to begin construction next week with ambitions of setting the “worldwide bar for sustainability in the film industry right here in Georgia,” project leaders announced today.

Capstone South Properties and Domain Capital Group purchased a vacant, 17-acre site in Stone Mountain last year to launch a new studio brand, Electric Owl Studios, that’s being billed as “the world’s greenest studio.”

An official groundbreaking is scheduled Thursday morning at the Redan Road building site.

Billed as the world’s first ground-up, LEED Gold-certified film and TV studio campus, Electric Owl Studios will be located adjacent to Interstate 285 about 15 miles east of downtown, just south of MARTA’s Indian Creek station. It marks another major investment in the area around MARTA’s easternmost train station.

Electric Owl's Redan Road site, just east of Interstate 285 and south of Memorial Drive. MARTA's easternmost station is located next to the studio site. Google Maps

Electric Owl’s phase one calls for a 300,000-square-foot studio with six stages. Measures to reduce the project’s carbon footprint and generate energy will include LED light, EV charging stations, and efficient insulation, project leaders say.

It’s a venture by Capstone’s Michael Hahn and film industry vet Dan Rosenfelt, formerly of Third Rail Studios, another DeKalb County TV-and-film complex located roughly 20 miles away. Third Rail was bought last year for a reported $27.5 million by Gray Television, the Atlanta-based media company planning to turn Doraville’s razed GM plant into a 127-acre “Studio City.”

Project leaders have described Electric Owl's access to transit as “seamless” while pointing out that Avondale Estates is five minutes away and Atlanta’s airport less than a half-hour drive from the site.

Courtesy of Electric Owl Studios

Domain is the project's capital partner, while Epsten Group was brought on as sustainability consultants and Cherry Street Energy for solar initiatives. In a press release today, officials noted that Georgia’s “entertainment boom” is “only intensifying… with [more than] $4 billion in direct spending last year.”

The campus is scheduled to be ready for productions in early 2023.

Courtesy of Electric Owl Studios

The studio complex isn’t the only big bet in this transit-connected pocket of DeKalb.

Atlanta-based Kaplan Residential is planning a town-center-style project with 239 townhomes on 20 acres across the street from the studio. Kaplan’s venture is expected to have direct connectivity to the MARTA station. All townhomes will remain for-rent.

MARTA, meanwhile, recently broke ground on a $10-million update of the Indian Creek transit hub itself. That's part of a planned $300 million in upgrades at stations across the system.

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