More than three years after the project was announced, construction is beginning on a $125 million film production complex that will be anchored by Hollywood movie studio Lionsgate in New Jersey’s biggest city.
Officials gathered Thursday in Newark for a ceremony to mark the start of work on Lionsgate Newark, a 300,000-square-foot development slated for the 12-acre former site of public housing. In addition to Santa Monica, California-based Lionsgate, the project’s participants Great Point Studios and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, aka NJPAC, said that construction was officially slated to begin this week at 164 Dayton St. and should be completed in spring 2027.
Lionsgate is the studio behind the “Hunger Games,” “Twilight” and “John Wick” film franchises.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who made attracting movie and TV producers to the Garden State one of his administration’s economic development goals, spoke at the event.
“New Jersey is now a significant global competitor of consequence in film and television, not just to make stuff in Jersey — which is at an all-time-high clip — but to build bricks-and-mortar where you have decades-long investments with the likes of Great Point and Lionsgate," Murphy said.
He added that over the next few weeks there will be two similar gatherings for at least two more new big studio campuses.
Just last Friday, streaming giant Netflix closed on its $55 million purchase of a nearly 300-acre site at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey where it plans to invest $1 billion to build a production complex. There are also a handful of other TV and movie studio projects in the works. For example, in late October, Paramount, part of a combined company with Skydance since August, is set to become an anchor tenant at 1888 Studios, a state-of-the-art, 1.6 million-square-foot soundstage campus under construction in Bayonne.
Great Point Studios will own and operate the studio in Newark’s South Ward, while Lionsgate will serve as its longtime anchor. They, along with partner NJPAC, announced the project in May 2022.
At the event, held at the Temple of Hip Hop cultural center near the development’s site, the project’s developers signed a Community Benefits Agreement with the city of Newark. That pact outlines the studio’s commitment to ensuring the facility will benefit city residents through job creation, new educational programs and other initiatives.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said the studio will create 600 long-term production jobs and give an $800 million annual boost to the city and state. In addition, 40% of its total worker hours will be dedicated to Newark residents, 25% of the total construction work will be contracted to minority business enterprises and 7% to women-run businesses, according to Baraka.
“So I don’t want people to leave here thinking that we’re transforming a community without the residents in mind because that’s just not true,” Baraka said. “We’re going to make sure that the residents are in mind, but not just in mind, but on-site.”