High-tech opening generates excitement

Barely half a year ago, much of the space on the second and third floors at One St. Paul St. was empty.

It now houses millions of dollars worth of high-tech equipment designed to propel St. Catharines and Niagara to the forefront of the burgeoning digital media sector.

The Generator at one — the name given to the new facility inside Niagara Interactive Media Generator (nGen) — had its grand opening Friday.

Funded from a $3-million grant from the federal Community Adjustment Fund, it contains top-of-the-line equipment for use in video game, film and television production. In effect, it has just about everything a creative team would need to bring a project from the idea stage to the end result.

On Friday morning, representatives from nGen, its post-secondary education partners and firms located inside it welcomed members of the business community and political dignitaries to official open the facility.

St. Catharines MP Rick Dykstra praised the facility, saying it should be the go-to destination for research and work by both students and, perhaps more importantly, private companies in interactive media.

“This is exactly the kind of venture Niagara needs,” he said.

Mayor Brian McMullan said the work being done here could go a long way towards breathing new life into the downtown. None of it would have been possible, he said, without the many partners behind nGen.

“This is how you build community, and it really is a team effort,” he said.

After the remarks, visitors were given a tour of the facility.

nGen now occupies 10,000 square feet of space over three floors.

The third floor, with its social area designed to welcome clients, contains office space for Brock, Niagara College, and current business tenants Fourgrounds Media, Furi Enterprises and morro images. There is also vacant space which is expected to be filled within a few months.

The rest of the floor is a tech geek’s dream.

There’s an 18-seat theatre with a highly reflective HD screen and surround sound rivaling that found in movie theatres.

There’s also a visual effects suite, with high-end software for editing and special effects for film and television.

Right next door is a fully equipped audio suite.

It looks out into the studio, which has the latest in digital HD cameras, motion capture equipment and blue and green screen technology that can be used to create virtual sets.

Jeff Chesebrough, nGen’s executive director, said all of the components making up the third floor are connected to each other for seamless flow through project stages.

He noted that while the CAF grant was for $3,028,000, in reality the dollars were stretched as far as they could go, creating a facility with between $4.5 and $5 million worth of equipment.

The second floor has more meeting space and holds the data centre, the brains of the operation, racks of equipment through which all the digital data is sent. Running 24/7, the room is also backed up with a diesel generator so there will be no power interruptions.

The floor also contains a research and development lab, with a 3D scanner and a 3D printer, which can take any image on a computer and create a real-life physical model, in full colour, made out of a polymer based powder.