Lights, camera, construction!

New York

THE long lists of shows displayed on streaming sites, which seem to grow exponentially by the day, serve to tell you what's on. But in New York City, they also might reveal a bit about the future of your block.

Many of the studios that produced the television series, which have turned New York into a small-screen production hub, are now planning to open new facilities or expand what's already here, some in parts of the city that have been unfamiliar with such large-scale investment.

Fuelled by a pandemic-era demand for stay-at-home entertainment, and generous tax breaks, the studios are targeting a range of locations in Queens and Brooklyn, including historic redbrick enclaves, working-class sections of the waterfront, and industrial precincts known not for celebrities but concrete plants. These areas may not look the same for long. Previous developments of soundstages, as these facilities are known because they are designed to be soundproof, have had transformative effects. The creation of Silvercup Studios in a former bread factory in Long Island City in the 1980s, for example, helped turn that part of Queens into a trendy destination.

Some residents seem ready for their neighbourhood's star turn. "It's exciting," said Vanessa Pacini, a 17-year resident of East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a gritty industrial stretch where Netflix is planning a new home. "People don't really walk in this area. I would like to see more foot traffic," said Ms Pacini, who co-owns a local restaurant, Ange Noir Cafe.

Low-slung, windowless and nondescript, many soundstages seem happy to strike a low-key profile. Indeed, Broadway Stages, which has several addresses in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, doesn't offer much in the way of signage.

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But other soundstages are more overt about their role as place-maker, like the century-old Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, which was run for more than three decades by George S Kaufman, a member of a prominent real estate family. Originally owned by Paramount, which produced feature films, including two starring the Marx Brothers in 1929 and 1930, the company sold the property in 1942 to the US Army, which used it for decades to create propaganda and training films. After renovating the soundstages, Mr Kaufman took steps to revitalise the surrounding community, which today has schools, restaurants and apartments.

Series filmed at Kaufman Astoria include Sesame Street, Flight Attendant (HBO Max) and Dickinson (Apple TV+). More recently, in 2016, Kaufman Astoria, with Procida Cos, codeveloped the Marx, a 33-unit condo where a two-bedroom unit with two baths was for sale last month for US$995,000.

But the studio is also trying to meet the fresh demand for streaming video. This year, it cut the ribbon on two new soundstages, built on a former parking lot. Above them sit three floors of offices, which are open to nonfilm tenants. About 15,000 of the 65,000 square feet has been leased so far.

While Kaufman Astoria may sit in an established neighbourhood, most soundstages exist on the fringes, on streets that don't see crowds.

Two new facilities are planned for just such a stretch, in Ditmars Steinway, Queens, which offers scrap metal yards, roofing contractor shops and the entrance to Rikers Island. The first, an 11-stage version from a group that includes Robert De Niro, the actor, director and entrepreneur, will rise on a windswept parcel between the Steinway & Sons piano factory and a skinny creek. Developers, who paid US$72 million for the site last winter, hope to break ground in a few months.

The other facility will rise inside a factory once occupied by an Asian food wholesaler. It will be operated by Broadway Stages, which bought it for US$8.4 million in 2015 and plans to enlarge the property and add higher ceilings, city records show.

Broadway Stages, which began life in 1983 making MTV videos for musicians like Billy Idol, today offers 60 soundstages at 30 addresses, mostly in Brooklyn and Queens. But on Staten Island, it owns the former Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, a 27-hectare former prison whose razor-wire-ringed yards have played host to Orange Is the New Black, The Blacklist and Bull. The Industrial Age is also giving way to the Information Age in the area where East Williamsburg borders Bushwick in Brooklyn, at Netflix's site, where a printing plant once stood by railroad tracks. Netflix, one of the top creators of original programming, intends to have six soundstages there.

Netflix plans to rent these new soundstages from Steel Equities, a Long Island developer that bought the elongated site in January 2019 for US$53 million. Last month, Steel purchased another site for US$20 million, prompting speculation about further expansion.

In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a large parking lot - complete with a Hollywood-style back lot archway - will be a selling point of a new eight-stage studio incorporating two existing brick warehouses that is planned by Steiner Studios.

At soundstages, most of the action takes place indoors. But directors occasionally capitalise on local scenery, and the Sunset Park address, amid the ruins of a former shipping district that has stunning waterfront views, is hard to beat, said Doug Steiner, the studio's chair.

Cameras aren't expected to roll on these soundstages until 2024. After a two-year competitive process, the city awarded Mr Steiner the 5.7-ha site under a 99-year lease in October.

As he sees it, some industries, even white-collar ones, are fading in New York, which means content creation for screens large and small is necessary.

New York's 1.5 million sq ft of soundstages ranks it third in the country, after California, with 5.5 million, and Georgia, with 1.8 million, according to an October report from CBRE, a commercial real estate firm.

Soundstage owners say the industry would be doomed without the hefty public subsidies provided by New York state. "Virtually all" of Mr Steiner's clients, for instance, avail themselves of tax breaks, which allow 30 per cent of the cost of a large part of a production to be credited back. It's the most generous package in the country. California and Louisiana, tied for second, offer 25 per cent.

Season 2 of HBO'S The Deuce, which was partly filmed at Queens' Silvercup Studios, for example, benefited from a US$21 million credit in the third quarter of 2019.

Created in 2004 and set to expire in 2022, the breaks have so far created a tremendous amount of wealth, officials say. Since their introduction, the state has awarded nearly US$8 billion in incentives to 2,200 movies and shows, most of which have been shot in the city. Those productions spent US$40 billion and hired millions of workers, according to a spokesperson for Empire State Development agency, and naturally pay some taxes, too.

But critics call the film incentives a waste of public money because they believe the moviemakers would come to New York anyway.

Saturday Night Live, for example, has collected up to US$15 million a year, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group, but is unlikely to ever leave its New York base.

And with New York already facing a budget hole of billions of dollars, the "film tax credit is a very expensive incentive to provide at a time when New York state is withholding payments to school districts, nonprofits and others", the group said.

In the end, there might be no surer sign of growth potential than the increasing interest from traditional real estate circles. This fall, Square Mile Capital Management, a New York firm that previously had invested in offices and apartment buildings, and Hackman Capital Partners, a Los Angeles company with office properties, snapped up Silvercup for US$369.3 million. The deal is one of several recently for the team that involves film facilities, including California's historic Culver Studios. NYTIMES