Sony Pictures Imageworks is leaving the Golden State and setting up a new headquarters in Vancouver that will house as many as 700 employees.
The visual effects house confirmed May 30 it was relocating from its head offices in Culver City, Calif., to a 74,000-square-foot production facility at Pacific Centre, where Microsoft plans to double its own Vancouver-based workforce. The company expects the head-office relocation to be completed by April 2015.
About 350 employees were operating out of Imageworks’ Yaletown office last year — up from 80 artists in 2010 — as work was being completed on The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The company also recently finished production on Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier and the upcoming Tom Cruise vehicle, Edge of Tomorrow.
Randy Lake, the company’s vice-president and general manager of digital production services, said in a statement Vancouver has developed into a world-class center for visual effects and animation production
“It offers an attractive lifestyle for artists in a robust business climate. Expanding our headquarters in Vancouver will allow us to deliver visual effects of the highest caliber and value to our clients.”
Imageworks already moved a number of staff from California to its Vancouver offices earlier this year as part of a cost-cutting measure.
The company is expected to capitalize on B.C. film tax credits not available in California.
In February, Lake announced the company would be launching production in Vancouver of a film based on the Angry Birds mobile game.
He said the film would "allow Sony Pictures Imageworks to employ more artists in Vancouver on a single film than we've had on any of our previous CG features."
Imageworks is also filling its senior management ranks with local talent.
Mark Breakspear is joining the company has a visual effects supervisor and Shauna Bryan is joining as vice-president of new business. The pair both previously held similar positions at Vancouver’s Method Studios.
Native British Columbian Jason Dowdeswell is remaining with Imageworks as its vice-president of production operations after joining the company last year.
The Culver City office has about 270 employees, but it is not expected everyone will relocate.
The company said this depends on personal situations, who’s eligible and who’s interested. Meanwhile, a small contingent of employees is expected to maintain a presence in California.
Imageworks is the latest major tenant to announce it’s setting up shop in Pacific Centre’s redevelopment project, which will house Nordstrom’s Canadian flagship store once construction is complete in fall 2015.
More than 90% of the space has been leased.
While Imageworks will take up the entire fifth floor, Microsoft has leased the sixth and seventh floors of the building. Law firm Miller Thomson LLP will move into the fourth floor.
