The Fields. Picture courtesy of Knickpoint Ventures
Knickpoint Ventures has topped out The Fields Studio, the primary purpose-built movie studio in Chicago. Encompassing a complete of 482,000 sq. toes, the studio is a part of the 1.5 million-square-foot redevelopment of the previous Marshall Subject & Co. warehouse. The challenge is predicted to come back on-line within the first quarter of 2024.
The Fields is about to incorporate 9 sounds levels totaling 132,000 sq. toes, in addition to greater than 350,000 sq. toes of artistic workplace, mill and help area. Eight sound levels are NC-30 rated and vary between 12,000 and 18,000 sq. toes, whereas the ninth is a 5,000-square-foot area devoted to small scale productions. The 150,000-square-foot mill and help space will embody devoted area for manufacturing autos and departments, dressing rooms and a website for future again lot development.
The studio is taking form at 4000 W. Diversey Ave., 8 miles from downtown Chicago. The property will profit from entry to public transportation choices, in addition to to eating and retail venues.
In March, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a 10-year extension of the manufacturing tax credit score for the movie trade. This system was first accredited in 2008 to help the native economic system and the expansion of the movie enterprise within the state.
From warehouse to mixed-use redevelopment
The Fields Studio is the newest iteration of a property that went by means of a number of levels of transformation all through nearly a whole century. Initially in-built 1928 as an Olson Rug manufacturing facility, the 22-acre website included six buildings that modified palms in 1965 when the property changed into a Marshall Subject’s warehouse. After being underneath Macy’s possession from 2006 till 2008 after which vacant for just a few years, Benefit Companions acquired the warehouse in 2014 for $8 million and launched into a $60 million redevelopment challenge.
In 2018, New York-based Knickpoint Ventures bought the asset from Benefit Companions. The transaction was a portfolio sale through which Knickpoint acquired a 78.3 p.c possession stake of The Fields facility for nearly $35 million and one hundred pc possession stake in 182,000 sq. toes of commercial area at 4029 W. George St., in keeping with CommercialEdge information. Lock Up Self Storage acquired the remainder of the 21.7 p.c possession in The Fields again in 2016 for $1.6 million. The identical information supplier reveals that the property is at present topic to a bridge mortgage of $150 million supplied by Prime Finance Companions and has a 2024 maturity date.
Knickpoint is at present planning on bringing extra retail customers on the positioning, other than Cermak Contemporary Market—which grew to become a part of the mixed-use redevelopment challenge again in 2016. The roster additionally consists of SIX4 Inventive and The Federal Financial savings Financial institution, which signed a long-term lease for 50,000 sq. toes in 2020.
The intersection of movie and business improvement
For the reason that starting of 2023, a number of improvement tasks that catered to the movie and leisure trade have been both delivered to completion or began the planning course of. in February, Worldwide Levels LLC opened a 320,000-square-foot complicated in Nashville, Tenn., comprising 38 acres of manufacturing area.
The identical month, Innovo Property Group topped out a 900,000-square-foot mixed-use improvement in Lengthy Island Metropolis, N.Y. that may embody Borden Studios, a 194,000-square-foot movie and tv manufacturing facility.
In Los Angeles, Fox Corp. introduced that its Studio Lot in Century Metropolis will endure an enlargement totaling 1.6 million sq. toes. The challenge will reportedly garner a $1.5 billion funding.
