The Big Apple is in line to become a major Hollywood scene-stealer through a massive $100 million-plus expansion project at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Steiner Studios and its landlord, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., are teaming up to transform 20 acres of gated Navy Yard land in Williamsburg that hasn’t been used for decades into the stage for the first-ever Hollywood-style back lot to go up on the East Coast.
The project would expand Steiner’s presence at the city-owned industrial park from 16 acres to 36 acres. The movie studio – home to the largest soundstage in the Northeast – has already hosted the production of such box-office hits as “Spider-Man 3” and Spike Lee’s “Inside Man” since opening in 2004.
Douglas Steiner, the studio’s chairman, said the outdoor lot would likely include a large scenic reconstruction of New York City streets, cutting down on costly street closings for city location shoots and making it easier for city-based productions to film in the Big Apple rather than head to California.
The Nassau Street site at the Navy Yard is a former medical compound. It houses majestic, historic buildings dating back to 1830 that would be renovated so they, too, could be used as scenery.
“It’s a unique setting for what would become a one-of-a-kind production facility,” Steiner said.
Andrew Kimball, the development corporation’s president, said the project would also generate enough space to house a graduate school specializing in film/television production along with other entertainment-related uses.
Students, he said, “would benefit from studying in the heart of” the Big Apple’s so-called “Hollywood East.”
Steiner and the corporation are expected within the next month to begin soliciting proposals from producers interested in becoming tenants at the space.
A-list production companies, such as Imagine Films Entertainment and Warner Bros. could compete for control of the back lot. Construction on the project is expected to start in 2009.
The announcement comes as Steiner is already in the process of doubling its studio space at the Navy Yard to nearly 600,000 square feet by renovating an adjacent World War II-era seven-story building. This $50 million project would also create space for animation, wardrobe and other pre- and post-production work.