Robert DeNiro Looks for a Piece of New York's Booming TV and Film Business
A New York company linked to Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro and his son agreed to buy 5.3 acres in New York City's Astoria, Queens, with plans to build a sprawling studio to capitalize on the Big Apple's surging film and production business.
Real estate investment and development firm Wildflower Ltd. is under contract to pay $73 million for part of a site owned by piano maker Steinway & Sons at 87 19th Ave., where it plans to create Wildflower Studios, a 600,000-square-foot production campus for film, television, virtual reality and gaming, the company confirmed to CoStar News.
The Wildflower company, led by entrepreneurs Matt Dicker and Adam Gordon, is partnering with De Niro, his son Raphael De Niro and the famed actor's business partner and film producer, Jane Rosenthal, for the deal. Dustin Stolly and Jordan Roeschlaub of brokerage Newmark Knight Frank were involved in raising $425 million, from $150 million in equity and $275 million in debt, to fund the renovation of the site. The sale is expected to close by the end of this year.
Wildflower is poised to benefit from a boom in television and film production over the past 15 years in New York City, initially sparked by producers looking to beat high costs in Hollywood and other parts of Southern California by taking advantage of a generous New York tax incentive program.
The entertainment industry generates direct annual spending of $7.1 billion and $400 million in tax revenue while employing 130,000 New Yorkers, including those working in hundreds of films and television shows produced throughout the five boroughs, according to an independent study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group cited by the New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's Office of Media and Entertainment.
“Whether it’s in film, TV, augmented and virtual reality, or gaming, there is an exploding opportunity to tell stories to people across the globe,” said Adam Gordon, an investor in the Astoria film studio and the president of Wildflower, told the New York Times, which previously reported the deal. “The demand for original content creation is exploding, and with its talent pool and creative energy New York City is a natural home to that evolution.”
Among the production development in the area, Steiner Studios opened along the Brooklyn waterfront in 2004, growing from five sound stages and one movie in production to 30 stages, a back lot about to start construction and multiple projects, while Silvercup Studios has added two production facilities, including one in the Bronx, according to the New York Times.
Kaufman Astoria Studios at 34-12 36th St. in Astoria, opened by legendary film producer Adolph Zukor in 1920 and former home of Zukor's Paramount Pictures, supports film, television and commercial production with nine stages, a lighting and grip company, music studios and production support facilities.
Fast-growing streaming service Netflix has added hundreds of thousands of square feet of office and studio space in Hollywood, California, and last year announced plans for a $1 billion new studio in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A few weeks ago it announced a significant $100 million expansion in New York that includes creating new corporate office in Manhattan and a production hub with six sound stages in Brooklyn.
Production studios and sound stages are in short supply around the country, including the nation's entertainment capital, Los Angeles, where investors are snapping up production space almost as soon as it hits the market. For example, developer and investor Hackman Capital Partners is in talks to buy a Manhattan Beach, California, production campus as well as some or all of a global production management and services company on the property for as much as $700 million, potentially catapulting the developer and investor into the ranks of the biggest private owners of film and television studio production real estate.
