Warburton Studios North LLC, which is located at the offices of developer National Resources in Greenwich, is proposing to build a new movie studio at 116 to 136 Warburton Ave. in Yonkers. National Resources, in conjunction with Great Point Studios headed by Robert Halmi Jr., has been behind the development of Lionsgate Studios, Mediapro Studios, and other movie studio campuses in Yonkers.
The latest studio campus would be on property currently used for storage of National Guard vehicles and equipment. It would be close to the Great Point studio facility at 90 Warburton Ave., and would be similar in design and architectural style to that studio. The 90 Warburton facility has two currently operating sound stages, one 20,000 square feet and the second 10,000 square feet. There is an additional 44,000 square feet of support space. The facility is just across the street from Great Point’s production campus on Wells Avenue.
The 116 Warburton Ave. studio would encompass 33,708 square feet. The first floor sound stage and support and loading space would total 23,140 square feet. There would be two floors of warehouse space above with a total of 10,568 square feet. The land area is reported to be about 48,380 square feet.
In a preliminary review of the proposal, the Yonkers building department noted that the land involved consists of 17 separate lots. It said that the lots need to be combined into a single parcel owned by the same party. The project will also include one loading space for a mix of tractor-trailers and box trucks along with dumpsters for garbage and recyclables.
The cost to build the new Warburton Avenue studio has been estimated at $3,500,000. It’s estimated there would be 10 full-time employees at the studio and 10 part-time employees. The employment figures do not include additional personnel brought in by companies booking the studio for film and TV production activities, which often involve dozens of technical and creative personnel as well as numerous actors and extras.
Halmi has said that when all of their current plans have come to fruition, Great Point and National Resources will have built 2-million square feet of movie and TV production space in Yonkers, making the city the largest film and TV production center on the East Coast. Yonkers has named itself and adopted as a registered trademark the phrase “Hollywood on Hudson.”
