Production studio Cine Magic expanding in Long Island City

Fast-growing production studio Cine Magic has more TV and film business than it could fit at its thriving, 110,000-square-foot Greenpoint waterfront facility known as Cine Magic East River Studios. So it’s expanding in Long Island City, where it just signed a lease for an additional 61,000 square feet at 30-15 48th Ave.

Productions that have used Cine Magic East River Studios on the Brooklyn waterfront include shows “Ray Donovan” and “Billions” and films such as “Tower Heist” and “The Drop.”

“There are so many shows today that people can watch thanks to streaming services. There is so much television production in New York,” said Cine Magic owner Peter Kapsalis. “About 70 shows are shooting here now, and there are scripts for 500 more but not enough room for them.”

The city’s astonishing explosion in filmmaking has also created huge demand for sound stages and post-production facilities at the giant Steiner, Kaufman Astoria and Silvercup Studios. Netflix also plans to launch a production hub in Brooklyn boasting Robert De Niro as an investor.

Some 332 movies were shot in whole or in part in the Big Apple in 2018, compared with 121 in 1980. The boom has been bolstered by state-granted production credits totaling $420 million annually.

An exuberant Kapsalis cited another reason. “New York and California are the only places that have this kind of talent,” he said. “Not actors, but blue-collar production talent.”

The rent at 30-15 48th Ave., a former manufacturing and storage building, is $25 a square foot, Kapsalis said. The lease was negotiated by J.W. Burke & Co.’s Jonathan Burke and Patrick Gardner. Sholom & Zuckerbrot’s Hillel Gal-Osher repped the landlord.

Burke commented, “The prospect of seeing the transformation of this property from warehouse and manufacturing to a state-of-the-art television and movie studio is a testament to the value and viability of this community.”

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