http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/bu...wXip02HZF3n3zg
A Big New York City Movie Studio Is Getting Bigger
An architect’s rendering of the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, after its expansion.
By JANE L. LEVERE
June 11, 2008
Kaufman Astoria Studios, one of New York City’s three largest movie studios, is moving ahead with a major expansion plan, nine years after it was announced.
The studio, in the Astoria section of Queens, will break ground this fall on a $20 million building, with an 18,000-square-foot soundstage and 22,000 square feet of support space, on a plot of land diagonally across 36th Street from its current building, which is between 34th and 35th Avenues.
Eventually, the studio intends to shut off 36th Street and erect a gate to create a studio lot — a compound with indoor and outdoor sets — and to construct a tower that would combine a hotel and office space directly behind the new soundstage.
Astoria Studios is not the only New York movie studio that is expanding:
Two years ago, Silvercup Studios, in Long Island City, Queens, announced that it would build a $1 billion complex on the East River waterfront, south of the Queensboro Bridge. It is to have eight new soundstages, production and support space, two towers with 1,000 apartments, an office tower and stores.
Construction has been delayed, however, by problems involving the removal of generators, owned by the New York Power Authority, on the site. Stuart Match Suna, Silvercup Studios’ president, said he hoped this matter would be resolved in time for work to begin next year.
The newest of the big three studios, the four-year-old Steiner Studios, is renovating a 289,000-square-foot building adjacent to its current soundstages in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, for use as production and office space. It also announced last November that it had joined forces with the Navy Yard to transform a 20-acre segment of the yard into a media and entertainment center that would also contain a studio lot.
All the development is intended to take advantage of tax incentives offered by the city and state governments.
To lure film production away from other states and Canada, the New York State Legislature four years ago approved a 10 percent tax credit on certain production costs, primarily for blue-collar technicians and crew members, and a 5 percent credit from New York City. These tax breaks — which are applied toward state and city income taxes — were sweetened in April, when the Legislature tripled the state tax incentive to 30 percent.
George S. Kaufman, a developer of New York City office and showroom space, has leased Astoria Studios, which dates to the 1920s silent-picture era, from the city government since 1982. A 10-minute subway ride from Manhattan, the studio’s original 300,000-square-foot building holds six soundstages, a recording studio and 50,000 square feet of office space.
The neighborhood around the original studio building has many related buildings, including a 63,000-square-foot loft building, at 35th Avenue between 37th and 38th Streets, that Mr. Kaufman converted to offices five years ago. Directly across 35th Avenue is a multiplex theater.
Other buildings in the neighborhood also have links to the creative arts. The Museum of the Moving Image, across 36th Street from the original studio building, is undergoing a $65 million renovation and expansion.
In addition, the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, a high school established in 2001, will move next January into a new building on 35th Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets, on land also previously leased by Astoria Studios.
Astoria Studios announced plans to build a new soundstage and support space in 1999, but Hal G. Rosenbluth, its president, said it had delayed going forward because “as 9/11 happened, some of our financing came into question.” He added: “Production tax credits later came into play, and the city was able to resurrect some of the financing that was set earlier.”
Mr. Kaufman said Astoria Studios would embark on the public review process required to “demap” 36th Street, in order to create a studio lot, once construction begins on the new soundstage in the fall. He estimated the lot would cost about $2 million.
Later, he would like to construct the new hotel and office building behind the new soundstage. The tower is expected to be as big as 150,000 square feet and 18 stories high; this is now in the planning stage.
Government officials and film industry observers generally laud Astoria Studios’ expansion plans. In the last month, the studio announced that it would be used for two new television series: ABC’s “Life on Mars,” about a time-traveling detective, and HBO’s “Last of the Ninth,” a police drama. A remake of “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” originally made in 1974, is currently being produced there.
“There is a growing competitive awareness that the space you are offering for TV and film production needs to be upgraded in quantity and upgraded in quality,” said Rosemary Scanlon, associate professor of economics at the Real Estate Institute of New York University and former chief economist of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Ms. Scanlon estimates that television and film production is responsible for $6.6 billion of the total $21.2 billion generated by the arts in New York’s economy.
She said Astoria Studios’ plans for mixed-use development could “help offset the risk of putting investment in soundstages.” She said: “Once you build the facility, then it’s a marketing process. Studio space is like inventory; you have to market it every time it becomes vacant.”
Pat Swinney Kaufman, executive director of the New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development, said the film industry “can absolutely absorb” the expansions by the three movie studios. (Ms. Kaufman is not related to George S. Kaufman.)
Michael N. Gianaris, a Democratic state assemblyman from Queens, predicted the new development would be “an integral part of the continued success of Long Island City and Astoria. It’s an area of the city growing by leaps and bounds; many of us believe it will be the next big business district for the city.”
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