Bungalow Projects Makes Plans for 307K-SF East Williamsburg Movie Studio

Hollywood is taking over Brooklyn as another major movie studio comes to town.

Bungalow Projects, led by co-founders Travis Feehan and Susi Yu, has filed plans for a 307,443-square-foot movie studio with five soundstages at 242 Seigel Street in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The company submitted the documents with the New York City Department of Buildings last week with CookFox Architects listed to design the development, according to city records.

Plans for the studio come after Bungalow paid $41.5 million to Fortress Investment Group and Aview Equities for the former Heritage Equity Partners development sites in Brooklyn in December 2023, according to PincusCo, which first reported the filing. Earlier this month, Bungalow paid $7.8 million to enlarge the lot, bringing the total purchase price to approximately $49 million.

Spokespeople for Bungalow and CookFox did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bungalow took over the development site from Heritage, which originally wanted to build a 13-story office and residential building on the lot, but its lender Fortress took over the property last year for $25.5 million after a long legal battle, The Real Deal reported.

Bungalow’s latest plan is part of its larger studio portfolio in Brooklyn, including an industrial site at 145 Wolcott Street in Red Hook, which Bungalow acquired with Bain Capital Real Estate for $34 million in April, as Commercial Observer previously reported.

The company plans to redevelop that site into a 225,000-square-foot production facility with four soundstages and an additional 82,000 square feet of production support space.

“We are excited to continue to expand our studio portfolio with Bain Capital and believe [the building], with its market-leading specs and location in Red Hook’s vibrant creative community, will be a great addition to New York’s content production ecosystem,” Feehan said in a statement at the time.

Bungalow also plans to build a studio in Bushwick at 215 Moore Street at another failed Heritage development site, after paying $26.7 million to Fortress earlier this year.

This comes after a July report from CBRE found that film and television studios in New York City are on the rebound after surviving the pandemic and last year’s labor strikes by movie and television actors, CO previously reported.

So far in 2024, the tri-state area has seen a 12 percent increase in stage inventory, mainly due to several major studio developments in Queens, including Borden Studios in Long Island City and Wildflower Studios in Astoria.

A total of 34 film and TV studio projects are under development in New York and New Jersey at sites such as Netflix and 1888 Studios’ new stages in the Garden State, while many are anticipating Sunset Pier 94 Studios’ 2025 opening in Manhattan.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.