Lights, Camera, Queens

Positioned between Queens Boulevard and the Long Island Expressway, the Sunnyside facility offers four full-service soundstages totaling 91,000 square feet, each with 37-foot clear heights — plus a 15,000-square-foot rooftop flex stage featuring panoramic skyline views of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.

That last feature isn’t just for show: producers can swap the green screen for a real one.

The facility includes 125,000 square feet of production offices, mills, and support areas, 225 underground parking spaces, and eight full-size truck bays — all wired with high-speed fiber and XR/VR-ready infrastructure.

“It’s a level of workflow efficiency and excellence that’s always been a priority for producers and location scouts,” said Jonathon Yormak, founding partner of East End Studios. “With the Sunnyside Campus, we’re introducing the type of integrated stage campus New York has been missing — purpose-built, future-ready, and designed for how productions work today.”

A New Era for New York Production

The ribbon-cutting drew a packed crowd that included NYC film commissioner Pat Swinney Kaufman, Yoni Bokser from the Governor’s Office of Motion Picture & Television Development, and representatives from NYCEDC — all quick to point out that East End’s arrival dovetails perfectly with the state’s recent expansion of film and TV tax credits.

“Combined with the extension of the state film tax credit, our growing crew base, and a citywide ‘Yes to Filming’ attitude, the future is bright for our production industry,” Kaufman said.

East End joins a swelling lineup of new and reimagined facilities in New York: Robert De Niro’s Wildflower Studios in Astoria, Borden Studios in Long Island City, Sunset Pier 94 on Manhattan’s West Side, and Steiner Studios’ new Brooklyn outpost. Together, they’re rewriting the geography of New York production.

From Real Estate to Reel Estate

East End Studios’ arrival in Queens is part of a much larger story.

The company — a subsidiary of East End Capital, the New York–based real estate investment firm — has become one of the fastest-growing soundstage developers in North America, with 2.7 million square feet of studio campuses either open or in active development.

“Many of the studios that exist today were never designed for modern production,” said Shep Wainwright, East End managing partner.

That approach is paying off. East End’s Glendale campus opened in Los Angeles earlier this year and has already hosted productions from Apple, Amazon, Hulu, ABC, and Fox. Next up: the Mission Campus in Boyle Heights, the Griffith campus on the Burbank/Hollywood border, and the ADLA project — a planned $1 billion complex in downtown L.A.’s Arts District featuring 16 stages across 1.28 million square feet.

Meanwhile, the company’s Sunnyside campus brings that same ambition to the East Coast — and signals confidence in New York’s long-term production growth.

The Streaming Effect

What’s driving all this expansion? A steady demand for episodic television and streaming content.

“Television is what keeps stages full,” said Nicole Mihalka, managing director at JLL specializing in entertainment real estate. “Series get renewed, crews stay employed, and soundstages stay occupied. That’s the foundation of today’s studio business.”

East End’s strategy seems designed for that exact cycle — creating mid-sized, modern campuses that cater to single-series occupancy while remaining flexible enough for commercials, music videos, or feature films.

Why It Matters

East End’s momentum stands out at a time when many competitors hit pause following the Hollywood strikes and a content contraction across the industry.

“We got lucky,” Wainwright admits. “We secured financing for all our projects before the strikes. But long term, we’re betting on one thing — that content production isn’t going away. It’s just evolving.”

And while the company continues to expand in Los Angeles, New York has become its most visible symbol of that evolution — a city that’s once again proving it can stand shoulder to shoulder with Hollywood.

Stage to Screen, Coast to Coast

With studios in Los Angeles and now New York, East End is carving out a distinct identity in an increasingly competitive global landscape — one where cities from London to Bangkok to Toronto are offering lavish incentives to attract productions.

But for Yormak, the mission remains straightforward: “Our goal is to create studios that feel as modern as the content being produced inside them. The tools, the infrastructure, the workflow — everything has to evolve with the storytellers.”

As the industry enters its next chapter — defined by hybrid shoots, virtual production, and shorter content cycles — East End Studios’ bicoastal presence may prove more than a real estate play.

It’s a bet on where the future of storytelling will be made — and this time, the story starts in Queens.