NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams last week helped East End Studios to break ground on a film and TV-ready production studio in Sunnyside, Queens that will create nearly 1,000 construction jobs and roughly 750 permanent, full-time jobs. The studio is expected to be finished in early 2025.
The start of construction — which follows a similar milestone at another campus at Pier 94 Manhattan — kicks off the return of the city’s film and TV production industry, after the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and Writer’s Guild for America (WGA) ended their respective strikes this fall. It also marks a key stop on Mayor Adams’ “Working People’s Tour,” continuing to create jobs and power New York City’s economic recovery after the city set an all-time high job record with 4.7 million total jobs, recovering the nearly 1 million jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The East End Studios Sunnyside Campus will be a 340,000-square-foot, Class A facility with three full-service, ground-floor soundstages totaling 75,000 square feet. The project also houses a 15,000-square-foot rooftop flex-stage that offers sweeping views of the Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan skylines. The stages are supported by 125,000 square feet of production, office, and mill spaces. Like all of East End Studios’ projects, the Sunnyside facility will be fully integrated with extended reality and virtual reality infrastructure, including the capability to shoot on a virtual stage and high-speed fiber connectivity with scalable production-level internet.
The project — with a total cost of approximately $275 million — is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2025. The New York City Industrial Development Agency— which supports business growth, relocation, and expansion across the five boroughs by lowering the cost of capital investment — provided financial support.
“Thanks to SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America securing fair deals for their workers, film and TV production is back in New York City — helping more than 185,000 New Yorkers get back to work,” said Mayor Adams. “New York City is back, but our work is not done until every New Yorker has a pathway to success. We’re thrilled to see East End Studios bringing more than 1,500 jobs to the city and joining the ecosystem of successful local production spaces that are continuing to elevate Western Queens as a worthy rival of Hollywood.”
“New York City has profound unmet demand for best-in-class, fully integrated stage campuses. Our Sunnyside Campus will provide an elevated standard of workflow that doesn’t exist in any New York City stage at this time,” said Jonathon Yormak, founding partner, East End Studios. “East End Studios is exceptionally proud to participate in the city’s ever-growing place in the production landscape. We are honored to acknowledge today’s milestone with our valued partners at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the New York City Industrial Development Agency, and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.”
The city’s film and TV production industry employs more than 185,000 New Yorkers.
