After three years of council resolutions, rezonings, and revised renderings, the largest entertainment-industry project ever proposed in Mansfield is finally moving from paper to pavement. Super Studios USA, a 75-acre, $750 million film and television production campus at 561 Easy Drive, is scheduled to break ground in August 2026, with its first four soundstages targeting completion in June 2027, according to filings and project disclosures reported by The Real Deal, Bisnow, and ConstructConnect.

If the full ten-phase build-out is delivered as proposed, Mansfield will be home to one of the largest purpose-built film campuses between the West Coast and Georgia — complete with eight soundstages, hundreds of “camera-ready” housing units, a trade school for production crew, and a backlot of real, working buildings that double as sets.

Here is what residents need to know about who is building it, when shovels actually go in the ground, and what’s still unconfirmed.

Who is building the Mansfield movie studio?

The developer of record is Super Studios USA, an affiliate of Creative Tank, a Santa Clarita, California-based production company led by filmmaker Angel Gracia. Gracia previously directed the 2011 feature From Prada to Nada and has produced commercials for Coca-Cola, Toyota, and Honda; he worked earlier in his career with Ridley Scott’s commercial production company, per inkl’s profile of Gracia.

According to The Real Deal, the development team also includes:

• Arco Construction (St. Louis) — construction
• Gensler (San Francisco) — architecture and design
• Lineage Legacy Partners (Dallas) — local development partner
• Full Send Partners (Los Angeles) — investment banking

Day-to-day project communications have come from Super Studios USA CFO Richard Judson, who told the Dallas Morning News that the initial phase will include “two twin sound stages — so really four sound stages” plus production offices and parking.

Where exactly is it being built?

The campus address is 561 Easy Drive, Mansfield, TX 76063, on the western edge of the city near Klein Tools Boulevard and South 7th Avenue, inside the Mansfield Industrial Business Park. The site sits roughly 20 miles southwest of downtown Fort Worth and about 35 miles southwest of downtown Dallas, per ConstructConnect’s filing summary.

The City of Mansfield first cleared the land for this use in February 2023. A resolution approving the Economic Development Agreement among the City of Mansfield, the Mansfield Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), and Super Studios Mansfield, LLC was filed as Mansfield Legistar File #23-5185, passed on February 13, 2023. Connect CRE reported that the council also approved the necessary rezoning the following day.

What’s actually being built in Phase 1?

The first phase of construction — the $50 million slice that triggers the August 2026 groundbreaking — is significantly smaller than the eventual full campus. Per The Real Deal and ConstructConnect:

• Four ground-up soundstages, each approximately 18,000 square feet
• 42,000 square feet of attached production offices across two buildings, with the top floor dedicated to AI tools, post-production, and a data center
• Approximately 100,000 square feet of mill (set-construction) space
• A backlot with buildings designed as camera-ready sets
• Total Phase 1 footprint: roughly 81,000 square feet of vertical construction on 16 acres

According to Bisnow, Super Studios has already signed one studio tenant for Phase 1 — but the tenant’s identity has not been publicly disclosed because of a nondisclosure agreement. No specific film or television production has been publicly announced as committed to the facility as of May 2026.

What does the full $750 million campus look like?

At full build-out — described by the company as a ten-phase, five-year program — the 75-acre campus is planned to include, per Bisnow and Yahoo News:

• Eight total soundstages (the original 2023 plan called for five “clusters”)
• About 800 luxury condominiums and townhouses marketed as “camera-ready housing” for visiting cast and crew
• More than 430,000 square feet of retail
• Two hotels
• Restaurants, salons, fitness studios, and a civic plaza
• Approximately 20,000 square feet of distributed mini data centers to support AI and post-production workloads
• A trade school to train local production assistants and crew

Gracia has repeatedly described the concept as a “city within a city” or “mini-city” — built so that an exterior street scene, a hotel lobby, and a restaurant interior can all be filmed inside real, working commercial buildings on the same campus.

How big is the incentive package?

This is one of the most important — and one of the most overlooked — parts of the story. Mansfield is putting real public dollars on the table.

According to the city’s Economic Development Agreement and reporting by the Mansfield Record, the incentive package approved in 2023 — and adjusted since — includes:

• Land sale: Originally, MEDC agreed to sell the property to Super Studios Mansfield, LLC for approximately $7.3 million, financed by MEDC at 4% interest, with a $1 million down payment. In early 2025, MEDC sold roughly 21.5 acres of that footprint to the developer for $1, per The Real Deal.
• No payments on the financed parcel for the first five years, then a 50% property tax abatement for 10 years beginning in 2025.
• A $5.6 million infrastructure grant.
• A 1% construction sales tax grant.
• A hotel occupancy tax rebate of 65% for seven years.
• A mixed-beverage tax rebate through 2030.
• Full reimbursement of infrastructure impact fees for Phase 1 upon occupancy.

The Mansfield Economic Development Corporation has projected the full build-out at a taxable value of approximately $450 million, per Connect CRE.

How many jobs will it create?

Job projections have been one of the most-cited and most-variable numbers in the project’s three-year history. The figures attributed to the developer and to the city are:

• About 4,400 construction jobs during the multi-year build, per The Real Deal.
• Roughly 2,700 permanent jobs at full build-out, per The Real Deal.
• The 2023 Economic Development Agreement and contemporaneous NBC DFW reporting cited “more than 2,000 full-time jobs” at maturity.
• Gracia has separately told reporters the studio could produce two seasons of five shows annually, with an average crew of about 300 people per show and approximately 80% local hires, per inkl.

These are the developer’s projections; no independent economic-impact study has been published to corroborate them as of May 2026.

Why Texas, and why now?

The Mansfield project is part of a broader, state-level push to pull film and television production out of California, Georgia, and New Mexico — and Texas has aggressively upped the ante on incentives.

In 2023, the Texas Legislature increased annual funding for the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program (TMIIIP) from $45 million to a then-record $200 million for the biennium. In May 2025, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 22, sending Governor Greg Abbott a program that deposits $300 million every two years for ten years — a $1.5 billion total commitment, per KERA News. Productions can now earn cash grants of up to 25% of qualified Texas spending, with stacked bonuses (rural locations, faith-based projects, veteran crew participation) pushing the maximum reimbursement to 31%, according to the Texas Film Commission.

Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan publicly lobbied for the increase, testifying that he had written a Texas-set film that was shot in New Mexico because the rebate program there was richer.

Bisnow and The Real Deal both note that Super Studios intends to make its tenants eligible for the state’s reimbursement program — meaning productions filming in Mansfield could stack the state cash grant with the city’s local incentives.

How does this compare to other Texas studios?

Texas already has working film infrastructure, but most of it is decades old and modest in scale by Hollywood or Georgia standards:

• The Studios at Las Colinas / Mercury Studios (Irving) — opened in 1981; the campus historically housed three soundstages totaling roughly 72,000 square feet and produced JFK, RoboCop, Silkwood, and Walker, Texas Ranger.
• Bastrop’s 204Texas — a separate North Texas-adjacent studio being developed by Los Angeles-based Line 204 production company, per Yahoo News.

By comparison, Super Studios’ Phase 1 alone — four 18,000-sq-ft stages, roughly 72,000 square feet of stage space — is comparable to Las Colinas’ entire historic footprint, and the planned eight-stage build-out would roughly double it.

What city leaders are saying

At the February 2023 council meeting that greenlit the deal, Mayor Michael Evans declared: “Hollywood is coming to Mansfield.” He has separately described the campus as “the place where dreamers come,” per Dallas Innovates.

Jason Moore, executive director of the Mansfield Economic Development Corporation, has said the council had been working with the developer since September 2022 prior to the public vote, per inkl.

Gracia, for his part, has summarized the design philosophy this way: “It’s from the quality of the coffee, all the way to the quality of the grid above you.”

What we know for sure (as of May 12, 2026)

• The developer is Super Studios USA / Creative Tank, led by Angel Gracia, with Arco, Gensler, Lineage Legacy Partners, and Full Send Partners as named partners.
• The address is 561 Easy Drive, Mansfield, TX.
• The city approved the development agreement and rezoning in February 2023 (Mansfield Legistar File #23-5185).
• A $50 million Phase 1 filing was submitted to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation on April 7, 2026.
• Construction is scheduled to start in August 2026 and Phase 1 completion is targeted for June 2027.
• The total campus build-out is budgeted at $750 million across ten phases over five years.
• Mansfield’s local incentive package is layered (land discount, 50% / 10-year tax abatement, $5.6M infrastructure grant, hotel occupancy and mixed-beverage rebates, impact-fee reimbursement).
• Texas’s expanded state film incentive program (up to 31% reimbursement) is in place as additional context.

What’s still unconfirmed

• No specific productions — films, series, or commercials — have been publicly announced as committed to the facility. Bisnow has reported one signed studio tenant under NDA, but the name has not been disclosed.
• No exact groundbreaking ceremony date has been published beyond “August 2026.”
• No independent economic-impact study has been released to verify the developer’s 2,700 permanent / 4,400 construction job projections.
• The identity of the data-center operator and trade-school partner has not been publicly confirmed.
• It is not publicly confirmed whether any specific opposition or significant public protest occurred during the 2023 zoning hearings; the council resolution passed, but a detailed vote count is not reflected in the publicly indexed Legistar excerpt.

Frequently asked questions

Who is building the Mansfield movie studio? Super Studios USA, an affiliate of Santa Clarita, California-based Creative Tank, led by filmmaker Angel Gracia. Construction partner is Arco; architect is Gensler; local development partner is Dallas-based Lineage Legacy Partners.

Where will the Mansfield movie studio be located? At 561 Easy Drive in Mansfield, on the western edge of the city near Klein Tools Boulevard and South 7th Avenue, inside the Mansfield Industrial Business Park.

When does the Mansfield movie studio open? The first phase — four soundstages, production offices, mill space, and a backlot — is scheduled to break ground in August 2026 and reach completion by June 2027. The full ten-phase, 75-acre campus is planned for build-out over roughly five years from groundbreaking.

How many jobs will the Mansfield studio create? The developer projects approximately 4,400 construction jobs during the build and roughly 2,700 permanent jobs at full build-out. The 2023 Economic Development Agreement cited a baseline projection of more than 2,000 permanent jobs.

What kinds of productions will film there? The campus is designed for film, episodic television, and post-production work, with AI-enabled stages, an on-site data center, and a backlot of real, working buildings (hotel, restaurants, retail) that double as exterior sets. The developer has said the facility could host two seasons of roughly five television shows per year. No specific titles have been publicly announced.

Will Texas film tax credits apply? Yes. Productions filming at Super Studios will be eligible to apply for the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program (TMIIIP), which under Senate Bill 22 (signed in 2025) is funded at $300 million per biennium for ten years and offers cash grants of up to 25% of qualified Texas spending, plus stacked bonuses that can reach 31%.

How does this compare to other Texas film studios? The Studios at Las Colinas in Irving (now operating as Mercury / Blaze Studios), opened in 1981, historically offered three soundstages totaling roughly 72,000 square feet — about the size of Super Studios’ Phase 1 stage footprint alone. The planned eight-stage Mansfield campus, if fully built, would roughly double that, making it the largest purpose-built film studio in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

Is the project officially funded and approved, or still a rumor? It is approved and filed. The City of Mansfield approved the development agreement and rezoning in February 2023, and Super Studios USA filed its $50 million Phase 1 project with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation on April 7, 2026. Ground has not yet been broken as of May 12, 2026.

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This article will be updated as Super Studios USA, the City of Mansfield, and the Mansfield Economic Development Corporation release additional details on tenants, productions, and the August 2026 groundbreaking ceremony.