Movie and TV studio coming to the Bronx

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - The Bronx will soon be home to York Studios, a brand-new state-of-the-art film and television production complex.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said this will be an opportunity to shift people's perception of the borough.

"This is symbolic because not only is it going to transform this vacant dormant lot into a beautiful campus, when it's all said and done, we're going to be able to show the world through the film industry how beautiful the Bronx is now as opposed to what they were accustomed to in the years of the '70s and the '80s," Diaz said.

Tuesday's groundbreaking was for a 350,000-square-foot campus that will house five sound stages. York Studios Executive Vice President John Battista said the industry needs this space.

"Every other day I get calls for feature films, television shows, commercials," Battista said. "This is an industry that is busting open and they just don't have enough stage space."

This Bronx studio will complement York Studios' facility in Maspeth, Queens, which has already proven success with the films "Godzilla" and "The Amazing Spider-Man 2."

New York City is experiencing upward growth in film and television production, according to Julie Menin, the commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment.

"We're seeing TV production at an all-time high, so today the mayor announced the new TV numbers. We have 56 TV shows that were filmed in New York. That's 8 percent growth from last year," Menin said. "On the movie side, we have 336 movies that were shot in New York the prior year. So, on both trajectories, we're seeing incredible growth and that's why it's important to keep the industry expanding. And so having this new York Studio in the Bronx is fantastic news for the city."

The studio will generate nearly $100 million in new tax revenue for the Bronx and is expected to be up and running by October 2018.