BY ALISON GREGOR
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROY GUMPEL
When Adolph Zukor made the daring decision in 1919 to relocate his motion picture company from New Jersey to Queens, he set the reels of a trend in motion. It’s hard to know whether he ever envisioned the moneymaker that New York’s film production industry has become.
That cavernous motion picture studio in Astoria, which eventually became Paramount Pictures, is now called Kaufman Astoria Studios and is one of the city’s three largest movie studios. With Zukor no longer in the picture, the studio’s visionary owner is the real estate developer George S. Kaufman, who, since the 1980s, has built a complex of more than 500,000 square feet of stage and office space.
Now, to capture the business of New York’s rapidly expanding film industry, Kaufman Astoria Studios has taken on its biggest expansion since the 1980s: construction of a $22 million, 18,000-square-foot film stage with an additional 22,000 square feet of support space. The new stage will bring the total number at the complex to seven.
“We’ve always believed there’s a business reason to expand the complex as a whole,” says Hal G. Rosenbluth, president of Kaufman Astoria Studios. “But notice we didn’t go and say, ‘We need to build five stages,’ because we want to make sure what we build has the ability to stay utilized for the year.”
Since, in real estate terms, a film studio is more like a hotel than an office building—tenancy is rarely permanent and often unpredictable—it’s difficult to obtain financing for expansions, Rosenbluth explains. Despite this, the studio obtained a $10 million loan from Signature Bank.
“We’re able to do it because of the history we have, and the consistency of our management personnel,” Rosenbluth says. “Our lenders understand that we have a good read on the marketplace.”
George M. Klett, an executive vice president with Signature Bank, and chairman of the bank’s real estate committee, says he financed Kaufman Astoria’s original construction two decades ago while at M & T Bank, and then another construction project for the studio a decade ago while he was at North Fork Bank.
“This is a specialty project, and to obtain financing in any climate would be a little difficult, and especially in this one,” Klett says of Kaufman Astoria’s stage expansion. “But I know Hal and George [Kaufman] are experienced enough that they’re capable of building the stage and running it.”
Many blockbuster films have been produced at Kaufman Astoria, which is located at 34-12 36th Street between 34th and 35th Avenues—a 10-minute subway ride from Manhattan. Most recently, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 with John Travolta and Denzel Washington was filmed on two stages. Woody Allen also filmed Whatever Works there, starring Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood, while a set is currently being built for the filming of Eat, Pray, Love, starring Julia Roberts.
Kaufman Astoria has also hosted many ongoing television shows. The longest running currently is Sesame Street, which has leased stages since 1994 and was recently visited by First Lady Michelle Obama. Nurse Jackie, a hit starring Edie Falco, was picked up again by Showtime this year, and will continue to film on two stages. And a new show called The Beautiful Life: TBL, about fashion models, is also taking two stages, including the original 26,000-square-foot stage built by Zukor, called the Main Stage.
Rosenbluth says he’s convinced that if the new stage, which will be called Stage K, were completed today, he could book it. “We’re in the high 90 percent in terms of our utilization rate on all the stages, and that’s really excellent,” he says.
Construction of Stage K, taking place on property on 36th Street across from the original studio, has also received an enormous amount of support from the city and state. To initiate the deal, Kaufman Astoria contributed a 20,000-square-foot parcel of land to the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which then combined it with a 10,000-square-foot lot the city owned.
Now, the city is leasing the entire 30,000-square-foot plot back to Kaufman Astoria for Stage K. Kaufman Astoria also currently leases the land upon which the original studio was constructed, after Kaufman, in partnership with Alan King, Johnny Carson, and others, obtained the lease from the city in 1982.
Besides kicking in land, the city’s development corporation also provided a $3.5 million loan and a $1.5 million grant for construction. (Kaufman Astoria and Kaufman himself are providing $5 million in equity toward construction.) Seth W. Pinsky, president of the city’s development corporation, says the film and television industry employs more than 100,000 New Yorkers and contributes a hefty $5 billion to the city’s economy annually.
“The Kaufman Astoria Studios expansion will generate over 400 new jobs for the city,” Pinsky says. “The expansion of the facility will enable us to continue to capture the growth of the industry in the city by providing additional studio space.”
Kaufman Astoria also received a $1.25 million loan and $700,000 grant from the Empire State Development Corporation. Pat Swinney Kaufman (no relation to George Kaufman), who serves as deputy commissioner as well as executive director of the New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development, says the expansion is cementing New York’s reputation as second only to Hollywood.
The film and television industry “is certainly a very competitive area, and one that regions all over the country are recognizing and trying to attract,” she says. “And the expansion of Kaufman Astoria studios is one more manifestation of New York’s leadership in this industry.”
Five years ago, however, New York’s film and television industry was more of a tear-jerker than an inspirational scene, Rosenbluth says. Many countries, states and cities, where it was cheaper to film, were luring the industry with tax breaks and other perks. New York City, a logical place to shoot due to the deep pool of film production and acting talent, not to mention the city’s cachet, was losing out to places like Canada, Los Angeles and Connecticut.
Indeed, Kaufman Astoria’s principals had envisioned building Stage K as far back as the late 1990s, but the terror attacks of 9/11, along with the flailing film industry almost derailed the plan, according to Rosenbluth. “We were losing business,” he says. “Production companies would build their sets in Toronto or L.A. or some other place, spend six to nine months employing people and doing work there, and then grab the actors and come to New York for a week or two to do what we call your ‘hero shot,’ standing in front of some New York icon.”
Kaufman’s principals, along with the executives at other city movie studios, lobbied hard to institute tax breaks for film production in New York. In 2004, the state set aside money for a 10 percent tax credit, and the city instituted a 5 percent tax credit primarily for blue-collar technicians and crew members.
The tax credits worked beautifully. “They saved this industry,” Rosenbluth says. In fact, they brought so much new business to the state that Gov. David Paterson increased the state tax break to 30 percent in April 2008. That same year, when most industries were being slammed by the recession, unions serving the film production industry actually added members, Rosenbluth says.
“The tax credit program also encouraged local movie studios to add capital into their businesses,” Rosenbluth says. (Another movie studio in Queens, Silvercup Studios, announced a $1 billion program in 2006 to build a complex of soundstages, commercial space and housing.)
However, the bad news is that New York City, as of June 30, had used up its full allocation of $192.5 million for the 5 percent tax credit program and has been forced to approach the state to extend the program with more money.
Rosenbluth says he’s lobbying the state to allocate money for a multi-year tax credit program. Without some sort of guarantee of longevity, film studios won’t invest capital to grow, and unions will simply bring in labor from out of state, he says.
“The elected officials are seeing that, and I think we’ll get our multi-year deal from Albany this fall,” Rosenbluth says, “Because I think it’s so important to the state—it’s the only growing industry they’ve got left, outside of health-care.”
The city is trying to be supportive, as well, having created a “Made in NY” discount card that gives film workers special discounts with about 880 vendors, ranging from florists to lumber yards to prop houses.
Yet this program too is close to reaching its allocation limit, forcing the city to approach Albany for an extension. Still, the city gives much lip service to the industry.
“The film and television industry is a vital component of the city’s economy,” says Commissioner Katherine Oliver of the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting. “Last year, 208 films were shot on location in the city, and those films are part of a rich cinematic tradition.”
Besides carrying on that tradition, Kaufman Astoria has also had a striking effect on the Astoria section of Queens. George Kaufman, who is also chairman of the Kaufman Organization, a family real estate business, has been active in real estate for over four decades. Now in his late 70s, he spent his younger years acquiring properties surrounding the movie studio Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in Burbank, California.
“I bought up all that land in Burbank,” Kaufman says. “We were going to build apartments at one time. But then Steve Ross at Kinney National Services took over, and that was that.”
From 1969 over the course of two decades, Kinney’s chief executive, Ross, who soon renamed the company Warner Communications, built the movie studio into a giant media and entertainment conglomerate that became Time Warner Inc. But the original vision of a movie studio complex and community never came to fruition.
However, that vision stayed with Kaufman. When he discovered Zukor’s old stage in the 1980s, he decided to apply what he’d learned in California. Besides renovating and creating the six stages, Kaufman has been integral in developing a museum, a school, and a retail and office building.
Twenty-seven years ago, Kaufman helped spur the creation of the 60,000-square-foot Museum of the Moving Image, at 35th Avenue and 37th Street. It’s now doubling in size, and Rosenbluth says Kaufman Astoria relinquished some of the city property that could have been used for its stage expansion for the museum’s growth.
“That’s why only 10,000 square feet of city property went to the new stage,” he says. “We surrendered things, from a real estate point of view, to make sure that the museum expansion happened within the studio complex.”
Across from the museum on 37th Street, Kaufman Astoria was instrumental in creating a 14-screen multiplex theater for Regal Entertainment Group. And in 2003, Kaufman Astoria purchased a 63,000-square-foot building at 35th Avenue between 37th and 38th Streets, called the Annex, which now has offices, along with a high-end gym, a Starbucks, and a Pizzeria Uno.
More recently, Kaufman worked with the singer Tony Bennett and the city to create the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts. The 1,000-student public high school, which emphasizes the visual and performing arts, opened this past spring.
It was built on city-owned land that Kaufman Astoria had leased, using it as a parking lot with plans to expand onto it in the future. Under the arrangement, Kaufman Astoria gave up that land to the school, which then built a 100-car parking lot for the movie studio underneath the school building. “We thought having the school there was better for the complex as a whole, rather than leaving it as a future site for another stage,” Rosenbluth says.
Rosenbluth says the studio’s next move will be to rezone 36th Street between 34th and 35th Avenues to cut it off from traffic and create a studio lot. That way, actors and crew members could walk between all the stages in a secure setting. Rosenbluth points out that there have been minor traffic accidents due to rubbernecking when extras dressed as prostitutes or “Stepford Wives” crossed 36th Street.
And Kaufman envisions more eventually, even a hotel tower. “There’s going to be a lot going on,” Kaufman says. “The neighborhood’s wonderful because you can buy anything there, plus there are apartments there for young people.”
Kaufman Astoria hasn’t just influenced the neighborhood through the real estate it leases. It has spurred development of nearby retail and restaurant businesses. After Kaufman brought the first chain restaurant into the area, Pizzeria Uno, a neighboring real estate owner snagged Applebee’s and Panera Bread.
A beer garden named Studio Square recently opened this summer, as did a restaurant called Bizaare Ave. Café, which bills itself as a sushi bar, bistro, and lounge, with an American eclectic menu. Owner Dominick Vezza says he will soon be opening an Italian restaurant called Campagnola next door to Bizaare Ave.
“The more walk-in traffic there is, from the museum, from Kaufman itself, from Studio Square down the block, and whatever else they’re building at Kaufman, the more we’re anticipating it will work in our favor,” Vezza says.
Rosenbluth likes to joke that the studio has helped renovate more houses in Astoria than any other builder. After a 12,000-square-foot set is built—say, All Saints Hospital for the show Nurse Jackie— and filming ends, some materials in large quantities can be picked up by Materials for the Arts, a city group that provides arts and cultural organizations and public schools with supplies. But much of the waste—for instance, the odd two-by-four—goes into the studio’s dumpsters.
“In terms of greening our industry, it’s difficult,” Rosenbluth says. “It’s a creative business where they’re going to use whatever they need to get the look they want that will make you watch it more,” he says. “I laugh when I say, ‘Our dumpsters are the only ones you don’t have to be embarrassed about climbing into,’ but I’m not really kidding.”
Queens Borough President Helen Marshall says Kaufman Astoria has had a “domino effect” on the community of Astoria and beyond. “When supplies like lumber are needed for productions, that lumber can come from Queens,” she says. “And nearby restaurants, coffee shops, and other retail businesses benefit from the daily needs of studio personnel and support staff.
“The Kaufman Astoria Studios have helped to make Queens ‘Hollywood East.’”
