Ready-Made Sets Filling Filming Niche By SLAV KANDYBA Staff Reporter Seeing production sets costing more than $750,000 apiece destroyed after use in one feature film gave Alex Reid something to think about. The location manager for the NBC show “American Dreams” came to the conclusion that it made sense to purchase sets, consolidate under one roof, and rent them to studios. Next, he approach -ed some friends in the business and got the financing together. In December, Riverfront Stages Inc. opened its doors for business inside a Sylmar warehouse, close to a reservoir, hence the name. Riverfront is now one of a few production set stages in greater Los Angeles, including the San Fernando Valley, which provides ready-made sets on demand. Its clients, the owners hope, will be producers of feature and television shows that need to shoot scenes inside a hospital, a courtroom or a courthouse. Riverfront has all of those sets available for booking and can adjust them to fit a particular production’s needs. Some business has already started to trickle in, with two productions renting out sets in December, and Viacom deciding to stay for six weeks an unusually long amount of time to film some TV show pilots. Riverfront’s five owners expected business to be slow when the company opened its doors last December, but believe it will pick up, said Wayne Morris, one of the co-owners and head of transportation for David Kelley Productions. The main competition, according to an art director with Lifetime Entertainment who uses Riverfront, is Dos Carlos Stages near downtown. Convenient location Anthony Medina has used Riverfront several times because it is convenient and offers space for parking. The sets are what it’s all about, however, he said. “With little time you can tweak them to be different, you can customize them to your show,” Medina said, adding he found out about Riverfront from Reid. He decided to give Riverfront a chance based on the offer, and found the sound stages were worth it. “Most studios don’t have standing sets, they have stages and boxes and you have to bring in your own set,” Medina said. Riverfront’s owners committed to the Sylmar warehouse location for five years. They subleased the space from BEI Sensors and Systems Co., with NAI Capital Commercial handling the transaction valued at more than $2.2 million. While Riverfront may be a big business one day, Morris said, saving sets from destruction is nevertheless a good environmental deed, now. “At the end of a show, (studios) basically knock down these sets,” said Morris. “In a way, we’re helping to conserve them.” Before landing in Sylmar, Morris, Reid and the other partners scoured the Valley for a good location. Finding a building that would accommodate the large sets, and have room for storing props and stage dressing, was challenging, Morris, a 30-year Hollywood veteran, said. “We looked at a number of buildings and everything we looked at didn’t fit,” he said. “It was either too close to the train or there wasn’t enough parking.” Morris added Riverfront was looking for a home outside a 30-mile circular zone that starts near Fairfax and Beverly in Los Angeles to avoid paying city fees. Morris admitted the idea to open a ready-made production set isn’t original, but because it was kept under wraps, he thinks it has a good chance at success. “There are people that look at us and say ‘we always had this idea,'” Morris said. “We built under the radar and put it on the market.”