A Movie Studio Grows in Brooklyn

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The Man in the Director's Chair

Doug Steiner—the president of Steiner Equities Group, a family-owned, New Jersey-based, commercial real estate firm that was started in 1907—became interested in the movie production business when another developer approached him with the idea of creating a brand-new, back-lot, movie studio at the old Navy Yard. It was 1999, and then-mayor Rudy Giuliani had considered the idea, reportedly talking to Miramax (DIS) founder Harvey Weinstein, and Robert De Niro; but the project stalled, a victim of red tape and numerous delays.

Steiner says he wasn't daunted by the prospect of building a movie studio, despite the fact that a number of top-level naysayers stated it couldn't be done. For starters, the Navy had pulled out of the yard in 1966 and the area had been left largely derelict since then. And for a long time producers felt that New York was just too expensive and difficult a place to film. But where others saw problems, Steiner saw potential. "It seemed like an attractive idea," he says. And besides, "I'm an entrepreneur. Risk is part of the game." The city put up about $28 million in capital to the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. for infrastructure, and Steiner the remaining $100 million, to move forward.

Steiner faced numerous obstacles, starting with the need to create a new electric grid to withstand the consumption demands of a modern studio, and an upgrade of the 100-year-old sewer system. He also faced opposition from the Satmar community, a group of Hasidic Jews who have lived in neighboring Williamsburg for more than 50 years. "The grand rabbi was afraid that we were going to bring Hollywood to the neighborhood and steal their women," says Steiner. Then the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 set the project back again.

Raising Ceilings, and the Economy

Before opening the studio, the novice movie mogul had his team go to Los Angeles and talk to a variety of veteran production people, asking them what elements they wanted in a studio, and had his architects integrate their suggestions. The result was five interlocked soundstages ranging in size from 16,000 to 27,000 square feet, each containing three floors that allowed dressing rooms and post-production suites to be located above the actual sets. The studio even raised the ceilings of the stages from 35 feet to 45 feet high during the filming of The Producers, based on feedback from the movie crew.

Ezra Swerdlow, the executive producer of the Disney (DIS) film Enchanted, which was budgeted for $85 million and starred Patrick Dempsey and Susan Sarandon, says that without Steiner it would have been nearly impossible to film the movie—a modern-day fairy tale set in Manhattan—in New York. "The studio provided the scale and proportion of sets that this kind of film needed," he says. "We needed three large stages at the same facility. And there was no way to really do it before Steiner. It's definitely the biggest film that Disney has shot in New York, and they would have been skeptical to film it here without a facility like Steiner."

The busy studio has also helped to lift the local economy in neighboring communities, creating work for small businesses that range from dry cleaners to locksmiths and caterers; not to mention jobs for carpenters, grips, and other crew. "We estimate that Steiner is responsible for the equivalent of 1,000 full-time jobs," says Doctoroff, of the mayor's office.

Brooklyn Dreams

Andrew Kimball, president of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, says that the movie studio has done more than just boost business. "There was already growth around the Navy Yard, but Steiner certainly brought a new cachet inside the industrial site, and in the surrounding communities. [He] elevated the sense that Brooklyn is hip and happening." Indeed, in the near future, the Coen brothers are slated to shoot their film Burn After Reading, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

Steiner has more big plans for his studio. He is negotiating to lease the adjacent 22-acre campus, overgrown with shrubbery, that includes a Civil War-era naval hospital—the oldest such hospital in the country. Steiner hopes to renovate the landmark building, with its period staircases, into a suite of offices for filmmakers. "For instance, an East Coast satellite office for Steven Spielberg," he offers.

Also on the property are what were once the villa of the hospital's chief surgeon, nurse's cottages and a morgue. Steiner wants to transform them into writer's cottages and production offices. "This is still an evolving process," says the newly-minted movie mogul. He expects the entire facility to expand into a 60-acre moviemaking complex within 10 years. Hollywood has always been about big dreams—Steiner is turning them into reality in Brooklyn.

Perman is a staff writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York.