Taxpayer-built Privately-owned Santa Fe Studios Opens

Newsnm note- With many questions regarding ownership and the financial involvement of New Mexico Democratic Party Chairman Javier Gonzales unanswered, Santa Fe Studios threw a big bash yesterday. The party celebrated the opening of a massive movie studio complex built with taxpayer dollars that is somehow owned by private individuals. 

Javier Gonzales

Santa Fe New Mexican - With a confident "if you build it, they will come" attitude, the partnership of Lance, Jason and Conrad Hool ceremonially opened Santa Fe Studios on Wednesday afternoon. Roughly 175 people attended an open house and ribbon-cutting replete with mariachis, a buffet and champagne at what was once a vacant 65-acre tract of public land off N.M. 14 south of Santa Fe. "Today started as a dream six years ago," Jason Hool told the gathering. The project's first phase — which includes two 18,000-square-foot soundstages, 24,000 square feet of production offices (including dressing rooms and two hair/make-up rooms) and 17,000 square feet of nearby warehouse space — was completed at a cost estimated at more than $25 million. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Taxpayer-built Privately-owned Santa Fe Studios Opens