New York's Studio Boom: Big Promised Gains, Disputed Returns

New York has spent the last five years pouring concrete for soundstages. Developers, the city and the state have backed purpose-built studio campuses in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Westchester. Albany pays for the work that fills them through one of the country's largest film incentives. The headline numbers are large. But many of them are projections made at groundbreaking. And the official studies of whether the tax credit pays for itself point in opposite directions.

The projects and what was promised

Sunset Pier 94 Studios (Manhattan). This is the clearest recent example. NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) says the joint venture of Vornado Realty Trust, Hudson Pacific Properties and Blackstone put in about $350 million. Construction used $183 million in financing led by RBC. When the project was announced, NYCEDC projected more than 1,300 construction jobs, about 400 permanent jobs and $6.4 billion in local economic impact over 30 years. NYCEDC later said Manhattan's first purpose-built studio had officially opened, and it repeated the same 400-job and $6.4 billion estimates. Those figures are still forecasts covering three decades, not measured results. The project also paid for workforce training run by Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Brooklyn Workforce Innovations, which NYCEDC says began in February 2025.

Steiner Studios at Bush Terminal (Sunset Park, Brooklyn). In 2020, NYCEDC and the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) picked Steiner to build a roughly 500,000-square-foot hub with eight new soundstages on the city's Made in New York Campus. The city's announcement cited more than $320 million in private investment and about $15 million in city money for site preparation. It projected 2,200 industry jobs once the project is finished and at least 1,800 temporary construction jobs, with a 25% goal for minority- and women-owned business participation.

Wildflower Studios (Astoria, Queens). The developer, which partnered with Robert De Niro, lists an 11-stage, 775,042-square-foot vertical campus on 5.25 acres. It says the city approved the plans in 2021 and gives an opening year of 2024. Wildflower says the complex will create "well over 1,000 permanent new union jobs." That is the developer's own claim, not an independent count.

Lionsgate Studios Yonkers (Great Point Studios). Great Point opened the former Otis elevator site in January 2022 and announced a $500 million-plus expansion, according to the company and CBS New York. Job estimates for the site have varied a lot. CBS New York reported that the expansion "could create around 3,000 full-time jobs." Weeks later, Great Point's CEO told a local paper the studio itself would bring about 350 to 400 jobs, rising to roughly 500 with a second site. CBS also reported that Yonkers gave Great Point more than $2 million in tax exemptions. The spread between those numbers shows why early studio job claims deserve caution.

The incentive behind the boom

Studios are real estate. Their business depends on keeping stages booked, and in New York that depends heavily on the Film Production Tax Credit. In 2023, Albany raised the annual program to $700 million, a 66% increase. It also widened eligible costs and added a 10% bonus for filming in some upstate counties, according to the Yonkers Ledger.

The 2025-26 state budget, signed in May 2025, raised the cap again to $800 million a year, the highest in the program's history. Entertainment Partners, a production-payroll and incentives firm, reports that the budget added a $100 million pool for independent films and extended the program toward 2036. Supporters point to tougher competition. Entertainment Partners cites ProdPro data showing U.S. production spending in 2024 was down 26% from 2022, while Canada and the U.K. held steady or grew.

What the state's own studies say

This is where the finance story gets complicated. Different state-commissioned analyses have reached sharply different conclusions.

Empire State Development's consultants. Camoin 310 studied 2019-2020 for ESD. It estimated the state committed about $2.16 billion (net present value) in production and post-production credits. In return, it found that state, city and local governments would directly collect about $2.24 billion in taxes, a combined return slightly above break-even. It linked the activity to more than 57,000 jobs, $3.7 billion in earnings and $10.3 billion in yearly spending. But the same report put the state-only return on the production credit at 50 cents per dollar, and 47 cents for post-production. The positive result appears only when New York City and local tax receipts are counted too.

The Tax Department's independent audit. A 2024 review by PFM Group Consulting, commissioned by the state Department of Taxation and Finance, covered 2018-2022. It found the credit returned about 15 cents in direct state tax revenue per dollar, or 31 cents once indirect and induced activity is included. The report also said that "much of the economic activity would occur" in New York anyway, given the workforce and infrastructure already there. State Sen. James Skoufis's office circulated coverage of the report under the headline that the credit is "a bust."

The critics. The Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank, says New York has spent nearly $7 billion on film and TV subsidies over 20 years. It argues ESD's consultants assumed, in its words "preposterously," that none of the jobs would exist without the credit. The PFM study applies a stricter "but-for" test. State economic officials dispute PFM's findings and point to their own studies showing positive returns, according to Entertainment Partners.

Projected versus realized

For investors and taxpayers, the main distinction is between promised and proven gains:

• Projected: Pier 94's $6.4 billion over 30 years, Steiner's 2,200 jobs, Wildflower's 1,000-plus union jobs and Yonkers' 3,000-job forecast all came from developers or officials at the announcement stage.
• Measured (with modeling caveats): Statewide figures such as Camoin's 57,000 jobs and $10.3 billion in annual spending come from economic models of past production. How much of that activity the credit actually caused is still contested.
• Fiscal return: Every study cited here puts the state-only tax return below $1 per $1 of credit. Studies come out above break-even only when they add city and local taxes or count broader economic activity as a "return."

The bottom line

New York's studio buildout is real. Hundreds of millions in private capital have gone into stages in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Yonkers, and the state now commits $800 million a year to keep productions coming. Whether that is a good deal depends on whose math you use. The big economic-impact numbers are mostly forecasts. The fiscal-return numbers suggest Albany gets back well under a dollar for each dollar it gives up. Expect that gap to come up again in the next budget fight.

Sources

1. NYCEDC, Pier 94 public-private partnership announcement: https://edc.nyc/press-release/public-private-partnership-build-studio-campus-pier-94
2. NYCEDC, Sunset Pier 94 Studios opening: https://edc.nyc/press-release/sunset-pier-94-studios-debuts-bringing-purpose-built-sound-stages-heart-manhattan
3. NYC MOME, Steiner Studios selected for Sunset Park: https://www.nyc.gov/site/mome/news/08132020-sunset-park-soundstage.page
4. Wildflower Studios project page: https://www.wildflowerltd.com/studios
5. CBS New York, inside Lionsgate Studios Yonkers: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/lionsgate-studios-yonkers-inside-look/
6. Camoin 310 for Empire State Development, 2019-20 Film Incentive Impact report (PDF): https://esd.ny.gov/sites/default/files/Camoin-310-Report-2019-20-Film-Incentive-Impact-ESD-Final.pdf
7. Entertainment Partners, New York 2025-26 incentive changes: https://www.ep.com/blog/new-york-strengthens-film-television-incentive-program-aimed-to-keep-production-in-the-us/
8. Empire Center, on the PFM film credit study: https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/billions-in-film-tv-subsidies-yield-zero-or-less-for-ny-economy-state-sponsored-study-finds/