Across the city, new film studios are rolling thanks to generous government incentives and escalating demand for content.

New studios have opened or are underway in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Astoria, Long Island City, Yonkers and at the former Northrop Grumman facility on Long Island. In New Jersey, Netflix is creating a $848 million studio complex in Fort Monmouth.

NYC is already home to about 60 qualified production facilities — defined by the Film Production Tax Credit Program — located in all five boroughs but concentrated in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Already, these facilities include around 2 million square feet of production space, and more are on the way.

Take two: Sunset Pier 94 was given a $350 million Hollywood-grade makeover by Hudson Pacific Properties, Vornado Realty Trust and Blackstone. Sunset Studios

According to the most recent NYC Film and Television Industry Economic Impact Study 2021, the city’s film and TV sector supports 185,000 jobs, generates $18.1 billion in wages and contributes $81.6 billion in total economic output every year.

It’s an industry boosted by the state’s production and post-production work tax credits, which have been funded through 2036 at $700 million a year and $45 million per year respectively. Plus, there’s another $5 million per year allocated for upstate, north of Westchester County.

“We’re bullish that the recent tax credits are very helpful and seeing signs of the market rebounding and the overall industry rebounding,” said Travis Feehan, a co-founder of the Bungalow Projects in Red Hook and Bushwick that are still under development and received Industrial Development Agency incentives.

While California has always been the world center of movie production, Hollywood now faces widespread competition.

“Now other states are offering incentives, California is struggling and New York is thriving,” said Robert Gilman, CPA, who heads the real estate group at Anchin.

City developers are also incentivized to build studios because they can lease what would otherwise be $30- to $50-a-foot industrial area space for around $100 per foot.

“The new product is raising the bar of the quality of the sound stages in New York,” said Anthony Jasenski who leads the film practice at CBRE. “Developers are very resourceful in utilizing space the best way they can.”

Meanwhile, the new 232,935-square-foot Borden Studios tops a fancy warehouse project in Long Island City with four stages. Courtesy of Borden Studios

In one example, Andrew Chung, the CEO of industrial developer Innovo Property Group, added Borden Studios to the top floor of a new, state-of-the-art industrial warehouse at the new Borden Complex at 25-30 Borden Ave. in Long Island City.

The studio has 232,935 square feet of production space with drive-up access to four stages, 70,300 square feet of offices, 41,200 square feet of support space and 7,800 square feet of outdoor space that includes a private rooftop terrace with Manhattan skyline views and a façade more akin to a new office tower than a storage facility.

The studios themselves are serviced by the MBS Group, the world’s largest production support company with 600 stages in eight countries.

Sunset Pier 94 has roomy 36-foot-high ceilings to make TV and movie magic. Courtesy Sunset Studios

On Manhattan’s West Side, Sunset Pier 94 will open in January after getting a $350 million makeover as a purpose-built studio by Hollywood-based Hudson Pacific Properties, Vornado Realty Trust and Blackstone. It features six studios that have 36-foot-high ceilings to lure single-camera TV and film, as well as multi-camera talk shows. It also has dedicated back-office areas and underground parking for production trucks, and a huge terrace at the western end of the 1,000-foot-long pier overlooking the Hudson River.

The developers are also creating 25,000 square feet of waterfront area, new public restrooms and a 1,850-square-foot community space. The city will spend $74 million on upkeep of the pier until 2060. Rent paid on the 99-year lease starts at about $900,000 per year and escalates up to $2.8 million. The developers are also spending $250,000 on workforce development.

At its groundbreaking in October 2023, the city revealed Sunset Pier 94 will create 1,700 new jobs and $6 million in economic impact. “Investments like these grow the production sector, support local businesses in the areas where filming takes place and help more New Yorkers get jobs,” said Pat Swinney Kaufman, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.

East End Studios Sunnyside in Queens there are 340,000 square feet of filming facilities. Courtesy of EES

In the boroughs, the 340,000-square-foot East End Studios Sunnyside campus in Queens opens this week with four studios, support space, parking and outdoor terraces. The company also has four developments in Los Angeles.

Already open is the largest of the new studios: the $1 billion, 11-stage, 765,000 square-foot Wildflower Studios in Astoria designed by Bjarke Ingels Group and backed by Robert De Niro, along with his real estate broker son Raphael De Niro and development partner Adam Gordon.

Wildflower bills itself as “the only high-performance TV and film production facility, purpose-built for the unique needs of 21st-century storytelling.”

Robert De Niro and partners recently opened the $1 billion, 11-stage Wildflower Studios in Astoria. NY Post photo composite

There’s outdoor space, a fitness center and a 224-seat commissary with menus by “acclaimed chefs” — De Niro is a founder of Nobu, after all. It’s already attracted the quirky CBS cop comedy, “Elsbeth.”

Two Brooklyn studios are being developed for $550 million by Susi Yu and Travis Feehan, the founding partners of Bungalow Projects, which is backed by Bain Capital.

Their Echelon Studios Red Hook will be a six-story, 246,000-square-foot project on the majority of the block bounded by Ferris, Wolcott and Conover streets near the East River, with a 56,000-square-foot underground garage, four sound stages and ancillary spaces.

In Brooklyn, Echelon Studios Red Hook is being developed. It will rise six stories with 246,000 square feet of shooting space. COOKFOX Architects/DBOX

Bungalow’s larger, 351,100-square-foot, six-story development, Echelon Studios Bushwick, lies at the eastern end of the block bounded by Siegel, White and Moore streets. It will have six sound stages, ancillary space and a massive, 87,200-square-foot underground garage. Each stage is 18,000 square feet with 40-foot clearance to provide room for two-story sets.

“Each of our production studios are standalone and will allow all the production needs within our facility,” said Yu.

Yu previously worked at both Forest City and MAG Partners, while Feehan came out of Normandy Partners. They met through Bain and launched the company two and a half years ago, surveying among other stakeholders, studio heads, costume designers and production designers to determine the production challenges in New York and what they could create to meet those needs.

“We liked the locations and they are in neighborhoods where people wanted to eat and work,” Feehan added.

New stages are also popping up within a 25- to 30-mile radius of Columbus Circle, as allowed by various union and guild rules.

Around Yonkers, Great Point Studios has four different locations with its Lionsgate Studios alone covering 1 million square feet of stages and backlots right off a Metro-North stop. And in nearby Hastings-on-Hudson, Electric Owl Studios is converting underutilized land to a campus with new stages.

“From cutting the ribbon on new studios to growing the workforce through our ‘Made in NY’ job training programs, the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment is thrilled to see how much New York City has expanded our film and television infrastructure,” said Commissioner Kaufman.