Due in large part to a
huge push by both the Mayor and the Governor’s offices to coax shooting back to
New York City, film, television and commercial production has
been on the rise. In fact, so many productions have chosen to film in
New York
City that the
Mayor’s Office recently announced that 50 million dollars allocated for the five
percent tax break incentive instated last year as a part of the “Made in NY”
program has already been used.
Alan Suna, co-owner, along
with brother Stewart Match Suna, of Silvercup Studios, says that although plans
for the one billion dollar Silvercup expansion began long before the “Made in
NY” program even existed, the more recent upsurge of production in the big apple
continues to spur on the Sunas' grand community project. “This expansion has
been underway for a number of years,” says Suna. “We acquired the property
in early 1999 and began working with the Richard Rogers Partnership over three
years ago.”
It’s no surprise that the
Suna brothers, who started out as architects, would choose an architect like
Lord Rogers to complete this monumental design.
“We have each been
admirers of Richard's work since we were in architecture school. I first
‘discovered’ Richard's work in 1972 when I became familiar with his and Renzo
Piano's design of the Pompidou
Center in
Paris. Given the scope of
the project, we wanted to work with a world renowned architect we respected and
after a search and RFQ we decided on the Rogers firm.”
The expansion project is
set to be built in Queens on the other side of the East River from Manhattan. After all is said and done, the site will cover
more than two million square feet and, as Suna explains, will be much more than
a production facility. “This is a community,”
says Suna. “A community that will include studios, media-related office users,
cultural facilities, housing, a catering facility, a 1400-space parking
facility, restaurants, a health club, and over two acres of public open space to
which the public has not had access in over 100 years, including a waterfront
esplanade designed by the Olin Partnership.”
One small part of the
project is the inclusion of the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company
building.
Its restoration embodies the community spirit of the Silvercup expansion and the
push towards creating a site that is historically driven. “The exterior of the
building is officially landmarked and we already have landmarks approval for
its restoration,” says Suna. Although in comparison to the two million square
foot expanse of the project as a whole, the 1500 square foot Terra Cotta Works
inclusion might seem inconsequential, Suna adds that “we are using a lot of
terra cotta materials in the new project and expect a number of terra cotta
details in benches, etc. to make a reference back to the past. As far as
the use for the former office building, we are looking to the local community to
come up with ideas. So far they have suggested an information center for
all of the arts groups in the area, exhibition space for the "Friends of Terra
Cotta" group, etc. We are amenable to each of these uses but will wait to decide
on a final use until after the public has made its wishes known to us during the
approval process that will be finished in September.”
In the interim, on
April 6, the local community board will meet to give recommendations for the
site as a part of the statutory seven-month public approval process, which began
on Feb. 21 when the project was certified for ULURP by the NYC Department of
City Planning. As Suna explains, “this is just the first step in a long series
of many needed to complete the planning process.” The most important one,
stresses Suna, is approval from city planning. “It's city planning's approval
that is needed. The community board only recommends.”
Given the amount of
anticipated jobs created—over 2000 construction jobs and, after construction,
almost 4000 permanent jobs—it seems unlikely that the Silvercup expansion will
not be approved. Upon its completion it will be the largest production facility,
rivaling even that of the recent Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard,
although Steiner will still house the city’s single largest sound
stage.
“This is a 24/7 mixed
use development that reflects our business interests in Silvercup, real estate
development, the arts (my brother and I are on the boards of a number of arts
organizations) and overall excellence in design and planning. This project is a
culmination of what we’ve been working towards for the past 20 plus
years.”
