Artificial intelligence and digital media company Napster, formerly called Infinite Reality, ditched its efforts to occupy a headquarters and movie studio campus that has been in the pipeline for four years.
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The project, planned on the 61-acre site of a long-abandoned incinerator, has fallen back into the hands of its original developer, the Fort Lauderdale Studio Initiative LLC, the South Florida Business Journal reported.
Infinite dropped out of the project in December 2025, six months after the company's rebrand following the purchase of the once-notorious independent music service Napster for $207M.
Napster didn't respond to a request for comment.
The Fort Lauderdale City Commission has agreed to push the project's deadline to the end of next year and provided options to extend if construction progresses, a city spokesperson told the SFBJ.
The site at 1400 NW 31st Ave. was home to the Wingate Road incinerator between the 1950s and 1970s before it was designated as a Superfund site in 1989 due to environmental contamination.
Fort Lauderdale Studio Initiative LLC, led by developer Michael Ullian, submitted an unsolicited offer to the city in April 2022 to develop, construct, operate and maintain a full-service movie studio complex.
The developer landed approval for the project in September that year with a $164M budget, a construction start planned for 2024, and an agreement to lease the land from the city for $1 in annual rent for 50 years.
But by 2024, no movement on the project had taken place. Infinite partnered with Fort Lauderdale Studio Initiative that year, planning a full-service movie, television and streaming production studio and a film school, the Miami Herald reported.
The South Florida-based company tapped Sterling Bay in April 2025 to co-develop the campus, evolving the plans for more than 100K SF of office space and to create more than 1,000 jobs at an average six-figure salary.
Now, Napster claims the development is no longer in line with its priorities, the SFBJ reported.
Plans still call for four large soundstages, production offices, a green room, a talent hold area and retail space, the SFBJ reported.
It is unclear if there is a new tenant lined up to take the space.
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