DARTMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA -- The Scanwood furniture saga is coming to a fateful end.

The high-tech plant that once manufactured ready-to-assemble furniture for IKEA, has been sold to Tour Tech East. Tour Tech East plans to convert the 220,000-square-foot facility into a soundstage for producing movies and television programs.

The extensive assortment of equipment, some of it added last year and hardly used, will be auctioned off beginning on September 27 by The Danbury Group in collaboration with Great American Group.

Tour Tech East purchased the building for $3.5 million, well below the plant's assessed value of $11 million. The sale was recently approved by a judge. The Scanwood plant is located across from two smaller studios Tech Tour East operates

The new owners are lobbying the provincial government to provide $1 million in funds to help turn the woodworking facility into a soundstage.

Scanwood made nearly 1 million chests of drawers a year for IKEA, its only customer. The plant was originally built by Swedwood, IKEA's manufacturing division in 2004 and later sold to a former company manager.

Scanwood was declared insolvent in February and given court protection against creditors as it attempted to right the ship. Scanwood Canada Ltd. shut down in May, strapped for cash and unable to persuade its union workers to accept concessions that might have facilitated its sale and bought it more time to regain its footing..

Original sale plans called for finding a buyer to purchase the facility including all of its equipment and contents.

The September 22 auction will include several Homag machines that were installed in 2010. Homag Canada unsuccessfully sought to regain ownership of the equipment. Full panel processing and finishing lines, plus numerous CNC machining centers, edgebanders, saws, sanders, dust collectors, portable power tools, spare parts inventory and much more will be put up to bid.