New Jersey is getting another TV studio, with a co-founder of E! Entertainment Television planning to invest more than $250 million to convert a historic former silk mill in Paterson into a state-of-the-art production campus.
Alan Mruvka on Tuesday said he is launching Filmology Labs Studios: Content Creation Studios at the Reinhardt Building at 51 State St., a landmark property during Paterson's rise as the "Silk City." Now commonly known as the Padded Wagon Building, Mruvka said he acquired the property to create a next-generation production hub spanning roughly 250,000 square feet.
In the late 1800s, Paterson was an industrial hub and the U.S. center for silk production.
The new studio complex at the former mill will also house Mruvka's recently announced vertical micro-drama platform Verza TV, with plans to produce more than two series per month, along with projects from other micro-drama producers, production companies and independent content creators.
Micro-dramas are very short, digital series shot to fill a phone screen vertically — typically often one to three minutes an episode — designed for smartphones. The facility will be purpose-built for producing digital series, podcasts and emerging artificial intelligence-driven media formats.
The Garden State became a mecca for TV-and-film production after then-Gov. Phil Murphy championed restoring tax incentives for the creation of studios and their projects. Those include streaming giant Netflix's planned $1 billion production hub in Fort Monmouth and Lionsgate's facility in Newark, among other projects.
Filmology Labs, located just 20 minutes from Manhattan along Interstate 80, touts its ability to offer its users access to New Jersey's film and digital media tax credits, including incentives applicable to vertical dramas.
The facility will feature 21 production soundstages with prebuilt, fully lit, permanent standing sets optimized for vertical storytelling and creator-driven production.
"This approach eliminates the time and cost typically associated with set design, construction, and lighting — allowing micro-dramas and digital content to be produced quickly and economically," Filmology Labs said in a statement.
Creative campus features
The Paterson campus will include soundstages, artificial intelligence studios, podcast studios, a green-screen stage and an LED Volume Wall stage using technology similar to that employed on "The Mandalorian," a series that streams on Disney+. Additional amenities include creative office space, a commissary that can serve 200 people, and a fitness and a yoga studio.
"Paterson is one of the most extraordinary cities in New Jersey and a vibrant community," Mruvka, a self-described media entrepreneur and real estate developer, said in a statement. "Our goal is to engage local schools to help train young people for careers in this fast-growing industry, while drawing investment into Paterson and showcasing the city to the world. Filmology Labs is about creating opportunity — creatively, economically, and culturally."
Paterson Mayor André Sayegh said the studio facility will create jobs and position the city at the forefront of evolving media.
"Projects like this generate new opportunities for residents, support local businesses, and accelerate Paterson's continued growth and revitalization," Sayegh said in a statement.
The facility, whose plans were first reported by Variety, was designed by celebrity architect Conrad Roncati of Architectura. The campus aims to combine "historic industrial architecture with modern production infrastructure to enable fast, scalable, and cost-effective content creation," according to Filmology Labs.