Yonkers praised as #1 for U.S. film and TV during groundbreaking

“It’s clearly now the number one place in the United States to make film and television,” industry veteran Robert Halmi declared about Yonkers during a groundbreaking ceremony Nov. 6 for a new studio complex in the city. “That’s Yonkers now. That’s where people are coming, that’s where they’re going to be coming for the future.”

Halmi has produced more than 400 film and TV projects and founded the Hallmark Channel. He heads Great Point Studios, which in conjunction with Greenwich-based National Resources built and put into operation the Lionsgate Studio complex in downtown Yonkers. Great Point plans to open additional studio campuses in Yonkers, including the one where the groundbreaking took place at 1050 N. Broadway.

The opening of the Lionsgate Studio in downtown Yonkers signaled the start of the transformation of Yonkers into a production center for the entertainment industry and led to its adoption of the identifying slogan “Hollywood on Hudson.”

The North Broadway studio complex that’s under construction is being leased to MEDIAPRO North America, a content maker and distributor whose parent company is based in Spain. MEDIAPRO has operated in the U.S. for about 25 years and has production centers in Miami and New York. It partners with many top names in entertainment, including HBO, Netflix, Amazon, DirectTV, Fox, Viacom and Disney. Productions. It has a track record of winning awards that include Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmy Awards.

“With this new addition of the MEDIAPRO campus it will put our total studio presence in Yonkers over one million square feet of studios and production facilities,” Halmi said.

“MEDIAPRO at Great Point Studios Yonkers extends the growing footprint of our film and production industry right here in Yonkers,” Mayor Mike Spano said. He saw significance in the fact that MEDIAPRO is based in Spain and Yonkers has a large Spanish-speaking population.

Plans called for the MEDIAPRO building to encompass 183,008 square feet, including two 20,000-square-foot soundstages and one 10,000-square-foot stage. The new building includes warehouse space along with a shop where sets and props can be constructed. There will be a three-story component to the building housing 30,000 square feet of offices, editing suites, make-up rooms, dressing rooms and other elements.

There will be 70 on-site ground level parking spaces as well as two levels of parking above the warehouse and shop space, consisting of 84 spaces per level for a total number of 238 spaces.

First Citizens Bank reported that its CIT Real Estate Finance Group was providing $42.2 million in financing for the project.

According to a document on file with the Westchester County Clerk’s Office, RMC Development Company LLC, which has an address in care of Robert Martin Company in Elmsford, sold the parcel of land at 1050 N. Broadway to iPark Broadway LLC, an entity related to National Resources, for $10.5 million.

Another Great Point Studios complex is in the works for the former Rising Ground property on Hawthorne Street, not far from Lionsgate. The 32-acre campus would include a public school featuring media production courses for students in grades 6 through 12.

Not far from the MEDIAPRO site, just over the border from Yonkers in Hastings-on-Hudson, Atlanta-based Electric Owl Studios has proposed constructing a $100 million movie and TV production facility with six soundstages on 20 acres of the Graham Windham School’s 24-acre campus at 1 S. Broadway. Graham Windham would retain four acres to be used for its continuing daytime programs. The developers say there would be plenty of business to support their proposed studio along with activity at the studios in Yonkers.