New York’s TV and film footprint is bulking up fast as a wave of purpose-built soundstages and sprawling studio campuses opens across Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. Developers, studios and streamers are racing to lock down space in the five boroughs, and the balance of production on the East Coast is already tilting as each new facility comes online.
Manhattan’s New Foothold
On the West Side, Manhattan’s first purpose-built production campus, Sunset Pier 94 Studios, opened in January and wasted little time landing an anchor tenant for a high-profile series. The 232,000-square-foot complex packs in six soundstages and significant production office space, and the developers say they expect it to be fully leased in the first half of 2026. The project, from Vornado in partnership with Hudson Pacific Properties and Blackstone, also folds in public waterfront upgrades for Hudson River Park, according to NYCEDC.
Borough-By-Borough Buildout
Across the river, the studio map in Brooklyn and Queens is getting crowded in the best possible way. CoStar News reports that Steiner Studios already spans roughly 780,000 square feet, with dozens of stages, including what it describes as a 27,000-square-foot stage, and is pushing ahead on a 500,000-square-foot hub at Bush Terminal in Sunset Park.
New entrants are piling in. Bungalow Projects and Bain Capital have closed about $304 million in construction financing to build out two Echelon Studios campuses in Brooklyn that are expected to total roughly 600,000 square feet across 10 stages, according to Business Wire. Over in Astoria, the headline-grabbing Wildflower vertical studio has opened as a large, multi-level production hub, with design details chronicled by ArchDaily.
Why Producers Are Coming
Producers say the math is finally working in New York’s favor. The city offers deep union crews, recognizable streetscapes and a growing roster of modern stages, and the economics have gotten sweeter. The state’s Empire State Film Production Tax Credit provides a 30% refundable credit and now comes with a substantial annual allocation, according to Empire State Development.
At the same time, New Jersey is determined not to play second fiddle. The state has refreshed its incentives and is building its own infrastructure, including a nearly $1 billion Netflix campus at Fort Monmouth that adds serious East Coast scale, making the tri-state region an increasingly competitive production hub, per Choose New Jersey.
What To Watch Next
Whether all this new space pays off will come down to lease velocity and staffing. East End Studios’ Sunnyside campus opened in October 2025, and local officials touted hundreds of permanent jobs attached to that facility, according to QNS. Developers say Pier 94 alone is expected to support roughly 400 permanent roles, with project details outlined by Hudson Pacific Properties.
That kind of buildout brings tangible changes for neighbors: more crews on the streets, more trucks in and out of industrial corridors and more demand for everything from mill space and equipment rentals to catering and hotels. The next tests will be community impacts, local hiring and whether post-production capacity can keep pace so projects stay in the city from first shot to final cut. If the new soundstages fill up, New York’s long-running bid to rival West Coast studio power will shift from talking point to visible, day-to-day economic activity across the boroughs.
