Colorado’s Office of Economic Development on Thursday OK’d $200,000 in spending rebates for the producers of Ryan and Trista Sutter’s a new home renovation reality show “Rocky Mountain Reno.”
The Sutters, who live in Vail, rose to fame in the first season of “The Bachelorette.”
The pilot episode of their show aired May 31 on HGTV. It features the couple, who have been living in an office in Vail to save money for a purchase, hunting for and renovating a home.
Ryan Sutter told the Vail Daily in June that the network still is deciding how to work Rocky Mountain Reno into the lineup. (Ryan, who earned a degree in architecture from the University of Colorado, has kept his day job as a firefighter in Vail.)
Toronto-based Tricon Films, the show’s producer, had considered shooting the series in Canada, but preferred Colorado, said Donald Zuckerman, the state’s film commissioner.
Commissioners approved the rebate, but asked that the incentive contract require clear references to the state.
Fiona Arnold, the state’s economic development director and Zuckerman also discussed a first-of-its-kind state marketing campaign to make sure Colorado gets credit as the backdrop for Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Western The Hateful Eight.
Assisted with $5 million in state incentives, the feature due out in December is the highest profile the state film program has backed so far. But the script places it in Wyoming, not near Telluride where it was filmed.
In other approvals, the commission on Thursday voted to provide $15.7 million in job-growth incentive tax credits linked to 759 jobs, including a $10.1 million award for online small business lender OnDeck Capital.
In late 2012, OnDeck won approval for $500,000 from the state’s strategic fund to locate 200 jobs in Denver, a target it has hit.
The New York-based lender said it was considering Denver, Phoenix or Salt Lake City for the addition of another 400 jobs.
A Canadian manufacturer was approved for $3.5 million in credits if it brings 230 jobs to Larimer County, while another company, under the name Project DryFly, could receive $2 million if it locates 129 jobs in Denver.
