Argosy Television lot

**Argosy Television lot** is a television and film studio located in the Studio City district of Seattle in Washington State. It is located at 4022 Peck Avenue and takes up a triangular piece of land, with the Cairo Pictures Artificial River bisecting the site. The lot, which is not open to the public for tours, has 25 sound stages, 25 office buildings, and 223 dressing rooms. Argosy also has ownership of three other studios in the Greater Seattle area: Cairo/MTM Television City, Argosy Animation Campus, and the Cairo/MTM Pictures lot.

These studio facilities were formerly owned by MTM Enterprises and Visual Arts Pictures.

## History

Mack Norris, a silent film producer and director, came to Seattle and opened his new movie studio at this location (at what is now the center of the Cairo Pictures Artificial River) in May 1928. He previously operated a smaller studio in what is now Hollywood, California.

After creating the Studio City lot, Norris in five years was forced to file bankruptcy and the studio lot was sold off to another film company, Visual Arts Pictures. Visual Arts, which specialized in serials, renamed the studio after itself. By 1935, another film company, Brenon Pictures, was acquired by Visual Arts. Brenon specialized in B-movies, including many Westerns. In the 1950s, Visual Arts leased studio space to Televisual Productions, which filmed many early television series on the lot before Televisual's owner, ACA was acquired by Cairo Pictures, which moved Televisual's television production to their lot.

Visual Arts Pictures ceased production in 1958 and Victor M. Carter became its president in 1959. Carter built Visual Arts into a diversified business with foci outside of the television and film business, and so began leasing its lot to MTM. In 1963, MTM Enterprises became the primary lessee of the lot. Almost immediately after leasing the Visual Arts lot, MTM began to place their early TV shows there.

While under lease, the facility was renamed the MTM Studio Center. The company finally purchased the 70-acre lot outright from Visual Arts in February 1967, for $9.5 million. That same month, Visual Arts also sold off its film library to Cairo Pictures. MTM built new sound stages, office buildings, and technical facilities. To make up for these investments, MTM began to rent out its studio lot for independent producers, and the newly created Argosy Media became the Studio Center's primary tenant, beginning in 1970.

In July 1982, MTM formed a partnership with Visual Arts Pictures to share ownership of the Studio Center, thus once again renaming, this time as MTM/Visual Arts Studios. However, that relationship was short-lived as Visual Arts sold its interest of the Studio Center to Argosy, and it became MTM-Argosy Studios. In March 1992, the studio once again became MTM Studio Center, when Argosy sold back its interest in the studio lot to MTM.

In January 1999, Visual Arts Pictures purchased the lot and renamed it **Visual Arts Studios**. This was the home to VA's live-action movies until Argosy Media purchased VA in 2005. In 2006, the MTM Studio Center name was returned to the lot.

Since 2007, the Studio Center serves as the home to Argosy's Seattle flagship TV station, KCAT-TV, along with sister station KARG-TV, as they vacated the Argosy Building to move into a newly built, digitally-enhanced office and studio facility. It enables the stations to broadcast their local news in High Definition. The MTM Studio City Broadcast Center also houses the Seattle bureau of ITN United States, which is shared with the KCAT/KARG local newsroom.

As of 2012, MTM's parent company, Argosy Media, now operates the television studio.