Sony Imageworks is relocating its head office from Culver City, California to downtown Vancouver, the company announced Thursday.
The office will occupy a full floor in the Nordstrom building across from the Vancouver Art Gallery in April 2015. This move will bring up to 700 well-paid high-tech jobs to the city, and could make Vancouver the visual effects capital of North America.
Tom Knoepfel is the senior vice-president of Cadillac-Fairview Canada, the company that owns the building. He said Sony has signed a long-term lease lasting over five years.
“It's pretty unusual,” Knoepfel said. “We often hear about head offices leaving Vancouver. This is certainly a big win for our city."
Sony Imageworks’ Yaletown office is currently the workplace for several hundred digital artists who just finished work on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as well as the Tom Cruise film Edge of Tomorrow. More big-budget movies are expected to accompany the company’s move.
“I would say about 90 per cent of our crew [for Spider-Man] was up here in Vancouver. [There is] a really solid stellar team up here,” said David Schaub who is an animator at Imageworks.
Ryan Nadel is the creative director of boutique firm Zeroes to Heroes Media which creates entertainment-based projects. He said the relocation is positive for the technology industry in Vancouver, despite the associated competition.
“These big companies come in and they can pay a lot more than startups or smaller local companies, so it just makes things overall more competitive,” Nadel said. “But I think the benefits definitely outweigh that, as long as there's just general support for the industry."
The move is not without risks. Technology companies can follow incentives, as was the case when the Vancouver video game industry took advantage of better tax breaks in Ontario and Quebec. Still, many talented people remained in Vancouver and started their own companies.
Animation students in Vancouver are excited about the possibility of contributing to blockbuster films in upcoming years.
“They’re doing really cool high-end movies that you’re going to be seeing in the movie theatres,” said BCIT animation student Jennifer Denny. “So it’s neat that we might have the chance to be a part of that.”
The decision to relocate Vancouver could be partly due to Sony’s $250 million downsizing of the company’s animation business in Hollywood.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Peter Grainger
