Sony Silent on Its Plans for Columbia Pictures Lot : Entertainment: Rumors fly on what will be done with the old MGM site. A pond for <i> koi</i> ? A “Sonyland in Sunland” park?

Ever since the blue letters spelling Columbia Studios appeared on the gates of the former MGM lot last month, Hollywood has been rife with speculation about Sony Corp.’s supposedly grand plans for the property. At least a few things are clear:

Yes, Sony’s Columbia Pictures unit envisions some fancy new buildings on the Culver City movie lot that it acquired from Time Warner Inc.--sooner or later.

No, “Batman” set designer Anton Furst doesn’t have a secret plan to remake the lot’s famous Thalberg building, erected back when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer still owned the property. But he says he’s willing to come up with one.

As for rumors that Columbia’s free-wheeling co-chairmen, Peter Guber and Jon Peters, plan to buy a former mortuary next to the studio’s front gate and turn it into a koi pond or to collect old Columbia movie sets for a mini-theme park somewhere--a kind of “Sonyland in Sunland,” as one intimate of the pair put it--nobody as yet is willing to say.

“We’re in the conceptualization stage,” said Columbia’s filmed entertainment president, Alan Levine, who has remained tight-lipped about precise plans for the Culver City lot. “I’m faced with trying to temper my excitement about this. . . . When it’s all over, we’re going to have the showcase of the West Side, as far as I’m concerned.”

Under an extraordinary settlement of Guber-Peters’ movie production contract with Warner, Sony/Columbia received the Culver City lot in exchange for Columbia’s 35% of the Burbank Studios, which the two companies had jointly inhabited since 1971.

Warner had acquired the MGM lot when it merged with Lorimar-Telepictures in early 1989. Lorimar, in turn, had bought the lot in 1986 from Turner Broadcasting System, which purchased it that same year from MGM/UA Entertainment Co. In a touch of theater-of-the-absurd, a successor company to MGM/UA simultaneously moved the studio’s giant “Leo the Lion” sign across the street, where it now perches atop Filmland Corporate Center.

Columbia insiders estimate that about 1,500 employees will move to Culver City from Burbank over the next few months even as hundreds of Warner employees make the reverse trek to Burbank.

Levine said it is too early to know exactly how many employees will move or when. For the foreseeable future, he said, at least some Columbia units will remain in the Studio Plaza building, an adjunct to the Burbank lot that still belongs to Coca-Cola, which sold Columbia to Sony last year.

Other Columbia employees will be transferred to the West Coast from New York, although a skeleton staff will remain in the East. Eventually, the studio’s operations are likely to be consolidated on the tightly built, 44-acre Culver City site, where Levine foresees “a lot of work” and “several new buildings,” none of which has yet been planned.

According to published reports, the ebullient Peters has tried to lure executives and producers to Columbia with promises that their offices would be designed by Furst, whose Gotham City sets for “Batman” won him an Academy Award nomination last week. Reached in New York, where he’s been working on designs for Columbia’s “Awakenings,” Furst said Peters has asked him to get in touch regarding some “big schemes” for the lot, but the two have never had a detailed conversation about it.

“I don’t know what the scale of the job is,” Furst said. “I think (Peters) would like to make it somehow representative of the (movie) industry. But I’ve never even seen the Thalberg building.”

However those plans develop, major change isn’t likely to be easy or cheap. Culver City, already known for a somewhat restrictive attitude toward development, is considering a pair of ballot propositions that would further control growth, including one that would limit any new building in the city to a height of 56 feet.

Meanwhile, the lot’s massive rooftop sign, which still reads Lorimar Studios , is already a protected landmark under Culver City law--the wording can change, but only within limits--and other buildings on the 75-year-old movie lot are being reviewed for possible historical preservation. (Founded by movie industry pioneer Thomas Ince, the studio housed the Samuel Goldwyn Co. before formation of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.)

Under a requirement that dates to Warner’s ownership, moreover, Columbia is supposed to present the city with a detailed schedule for submitting a master plan for the lot by the end of March--or interim improvements could be held up.

“The issue of parking needs to be addressed,” said Culver City’s development director, Jody Esser. “Things need to be remodeled. We’ve all been very concerned about the age and usefulness of some buildings.

“It would be normal for Culver City not to permit one small building or area to be addressed,” Esser said. “We would want a master plan to show what will be the final result.”

Warner’s Lorimar unit--which filmed such TV shows as “Falcon Crest” and “Perfect Strangers” at Culver City and will continue to rent some sound stages from Columbia--spent about $20 million to refurbish facilities and bring the aging Thalberg office building into compliance with the city’s health and safety codes. The architecture firm of Gensler & Associates is now helping prepare the graceful white office building for Columbia’s arrival but hasn’t undertaken major modifications.

One person familiar with the lot said it is generally in good shape despite cracked plaster and peeling paint on many of its drab, beige structures. But he added that its underground utilities may need extensive replacement, at a cost of $20 million or more--an issue that Columbia hasn’t investigated, according to Levine.

On the home front, the pending move from Burbank has already triggered grumbling at Columbia, where some employees who live in the San Fernando Valley aren’t charmed by their lengthening commute.

“I think you’ll find that people from the junior executive level on down are unhappy,” said one Columbia employee, who declined to be identified. “The company has responded (to complaints) the way studios always respond: ‘This is the movie business. There are a hundred people in line for your job.’ ”

Still, several union officials who represent Columbia workers at Burbank say they haven’t heard serious complaints from members. “We may hear more down the line,” said a spokesman for Office and Professional Workers Local 174, which represents over 400 Columbia employees. “But right now there is no prevalent voice of complaint. We have people living on both sides.”

Levine declined to comment on the “Sonyland” talk or on any plans to acquire property outside the lot--although it appears clear from other sources that Columbia may have its hands full if it is really planning a Japanese-style pond for koi , or carp, at the studio gate.

Oscar Hardison, a Louisiana investor whose Filmcorp Properties I bought the former mortuary that adjoins the lot’s Madison Avenue entrance for $550,000 in 1984, said he might be willing to sell, though almost certainly for more than the $900,000 offer he said he received for it two years ago.

But Harvey Seymour, a self-described innovator who leases the property and is working on a product that will affect “both the entertainment and the produce industries,” said Columbia officers had better think twice about trying to move him.

“If Jon Peters said (he wants the property), he’d better run like a turkey,” said Seymour. “You just don’t go around displacing people because you’re a young genius.”