Steiner Studios Plans New Production Space at the Navy Yard

Steiner Studios, the city’s largest movie production complex, has filed new building applications for a big new facility on Kent Avenue in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Developer Douglas Steiner hopes to build a three-story soundstage spanning 178,800 square feet. There would be six sound stages and a cafeteria on the ground floor, followed by support spaces like dressing rooms, wardrobe storage, hair and makeup rooms, and a waiting area on the second floor. The third floor would offer production offices and dimmer rooms.

Dattner Architects filed the permits. This isn’t their first time working with Steiner Studios. The prolific firm designed six new sound stages for the movie studios over the last decade, and they oversaw the renovation of the hulking former Navy weapons factory at 25 Washington Avenue into more production space. The seven-story building also hosts the Brooklyn Graduate School of Cinema, which opened its doors in October.

Steiner Studios already controls 15 acres at the Navy Yard, including 10 sound stages, 580,000 square feet of interior space, 5.6 acres of backlots, and a 100-seat screening room. Steiner also has big plans for the abandoned Navy Hospital Annex. The $137 million renovation would transform several decrepit 19th century buildings into a 420,000-square-foot “media campus,” with an underwater soundstage, set construction shops, production offices, and space for a digital media lab used by the grad school next door. The main hospital building, which dates back to the 1830s, was recently fixed up for an art exhibit by German artist Bettina Witteveen. Her photo installation explored the history and psychological impact of war beginning in the mid-19th century.

Earlier this year, two other New York City movie studios announced expansion plans. York Studios, based in Masepth, is building 130,000 square feet for production facilities in Soundview, in the South Bronx. And well-known Silvercup Studios will convert a sprawling warehouse in Port Morris into “Silvercup North,” the Times reported in July, adding 115,000 square feet to their flagship operation in Astoria.

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