The Move to Alec Peters’ Former Home Puts Axanar Back at Square One

Axanar Productions plans to move to a nearly 6,000 square foot, unimproved warehouse about an hour outside of Atlanta to set up operations after losing the much larger California facility into which it had poured nearly three-quarters of a million dollars of fans’ money without ever using it produce its film.

After negotiating an early exit from its lease in Valencia, Calif., Axanar CEO Alec Peters prepared to move out of what he called Industry Studios by April 30, 2017.

OUTSIDE ATLANTA Axanar’s new warehouse is about 55 miles northeast of Atlanta, actually a bit closer to the South Carolina border than to Georgia’s capital. Click image to enlarge.

AxaMonitor learned Peters had secured a facility about 55 miles outside Atlanta, a warehouse built in 2001 in an industrial park near Gainesville, in Hall County, Ga. The building had been without a tenant since July 2016. It has previously housed a plumbing company, a packaging firm and an office supply company.

Peters will be paying rent of about $2,500 a month for the 5,900 square foot warehouse, plus 900 square feet of office space. According to the real estate listing for the warehouse, it is located not far off Interstate 985, features a 20-22 foot high ceiling, a loading dock and drive-in door. It does not have sprinklers in case of fire.

The surrounding community of Gainesville has a population of 28,071. Many of the homes in the area were built in 2004 or earlier. Axanar’s warehouse is located in a neighborhood with median household income of $34,574.¹⁾

INT. WAREHOUSE The inside of the warehouse leased by Axanar Productions.

According to Peters, the move-in is scheduled for the weekend of May 6-7, and a couple dozen area Axanar supporters have volunteered to help unload the three tractor-trailers worth of sets, office furniture, supplies and undelivered Kickstarter perks.

Volunteers are expected to help reassemble the bridge for Axanar‘s main vessel, the U.S.S. Ares.

The monthly rent is about one-fourth of the nearly $13,000 Peters spent in California. That exorbitant rent, plus the costs of converting the Valencia warehouse into a not-quite-soundproofed soundstage, drained Axanar’s coffers, leading to a last-ditch Indiegogo campaign to try to save it.

That campaign needed to raise $200,000 to put Peters’ Industry Studios on a solid footing. The campaign, with the support of barely 300 of Axanar’s vaunted 15,000 fans, raised about $22,000.

About 10 percent of that money will go to Indiegogo for fees and for the meager perks Axanar offered during the lackluster campaign.

Moving three trailers worth of property across the country would be expected to soak up a significant portion as well, leaving Axanar Productions with not much of a financial foundation for its new facility, and with no announced plans for how it planned to bring in enough revenue to stay afloat.

After raising $1.4 million in crowdfunding, plus at least $300,000 more from other revenue streams, Axanar was broke, as AxaMonitor reported in May 2016. The move to Atlanta puts the company back at square one — with a warehouse Peters hopes to turn into a fan film studio.

That’s despite his telling supporters in a Facebook video the weekend before that the Axanar short film may be the last Star Trek fan film Axanar Productions planned to produce.

OFFICE SPACE Two views of the 900 sq. ft. of office space in Axanar’s new facility.

With its new base of operations, Peters had said he planned a new fundraising effort — a private one since the settlement of the copyright infringement lawsuit against him prohibits public fundraising, including crowdfunding — to pay for the two-episode, 30-minute version of Axanar.

The script for that effort is not yet complete, according to Axanar spokesman Mike Bawden. Peters cannot create a budget until the script is complete, so the extent of his private fundraising effort is unknown.

Before leaving California, Axanar Productions had reportedly submitted its application to the federal government for federal tax-exempt status as a charitable organization, ostensibly to support other independent and fan filmmakers.

That plan, however, relied on the much bigger Industry Studios facility. It is unknown what challenges the smaller Gainesville space, about an hour’s drive from Atlanta, will provide in meeting Axanar’s charitable goals.

In the meantime, Peters said in a weekend video posted on Facebook, that he had contacted a film school and producers to seek partnership. Axanar’s Georgia facility, however, is not a soundstage.

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