Newly-released documents have revealed the extraordinary scale of a film park planned for the outskirts of Wanaka.

Replicas of New York, Venice, Paris and the River Seine are among Silverlight Studios’ plans for the 332ha site near Wanaka Airport, as well as a new and enlarged lake, a series of villages, and a variety of filming, post-production, film school, tourist and ancillary buildings.

Resource consent applications submitted to the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) show some buildings could be as tall as 17m and city replicas could reach 14m.

Construction would take place on around 55ha of the site, including buildings for tourism activities.

A portion of the site plan, showing the planned city replicas, villages and ancillary buildings. IMAGE: Silverlights Studios

The New York site’s footprint could be as large as 23,700m2, and a 14m tall ‘great hall’ could span 3,600m2.

The largest building in the application would host a series of sound stages spanning 68,850m2 and reaching 17m tall.

Silverlight Studios is owned by film industry veterans Ra Vincent, Jonathan Harding and Mike Harris.

Application details show the company would lease the site, known as Corbridge Estate and located 6km east of Wanaka, on a 10-year lease.

The company said New Zealand’s film industry is sought after internationally but considered to be “at capacity”, and as the country’s first purpose-built film studio of scale, the film park would meet demand in a sector that is “experiencing unprecedented growth and demand”.

Silverlight Studios was given government approval to apply for a fast-tracked EPA consent application for the project under special Covid-19 rules.

The 332ha Corbridge Estate site. PHOTO: Realestate.co.nz

An expert consenting panel will now decide whether or not to approve the application.

Plans for the film park were first made public in March and it has received endorsements from the district’s mayor, the town’s tourism organisation, its chamber of commerce and from Film Otago-Southland.

An Economic Impact Assessment (EIA) found that over 11 years Silverlight Studios could deliver $1.7B in GPD, $969M of which could be delivered to the economy of the Queenstown Lakes District.

The company said it would also make a separate resource consent application for on-site accommodation.