Architectural Digest

By India Roby

September 25, 2024

"Located in Astoria, Queens, the project, dubbed Wildflower Studios, is reportedly the world’s first-ever vertical film studio and production soundstage; the complex, spanning 765,000 square feet, hosts 11 “sound-independent stages” stacked on two levels, according to THR. Imagined by developer Adam Gordon with the help of Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingels, its Brutalist-inspired exteriors feature angled concrete panels. Gordon told THR that after noticing the city’s lack of soundstages five years ago (but a “pent-up demand” for them), he observed how New York has addressed spatial and density problems by building upwards and envisioned creating a vertical production space. De Niro and his eldest son, Raphael, soon joined as investors and, together with an undisclosed lender and another financier, assembled $1 billion for the project."

The Hollywood Reporter

By Julian Sancton

September 24, 2024

“At 765,000 square feet, Wildflower is the largest of a new wave of studios cropping up around the five boroughs, including Lionsgate’s Great Point Studios, to accommodate productions seeking to take advantage of the city’s character and the state’s recently expanded tax credits. But for De Niro such incentives are beside the point. The city itself is enough of a draw.”

Bloomberg

By Esme Fox

August 9, 2024

"Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, and Jimmy ‘The Gent’ Conway in Goodfellas: They weren’t just indelible Robert De Niro characters, but also New Yorkers who elevated the city into a character all its own in the movies they inhabited.

But in the years since De Niro roamed the Big Apple’s streets in those roles, New York’s once distinctive mark on celluloid has faded. Now, the Manhattan-born actor and producer is working to ensure the city regains its status in the Hollywood pantheon."

Crain's - New York Business

By Eddie Small

June 20, 2024

"There is no place that a filmmaker, a producer, an editor, a union driver would rather be than the environment that we're creating for them at Wildflower Studios," he said. "Will marginal studios flourish? That I don't know, but I'm quite certain that the best studios—us, Steiner—will do well for many, many years."

The Hollywood Reporter

By Etan Vlessing

May 22, 2024

“The $400 million Wildflower Studios, a film studio co-owned by Robert De Niro, has named Cheryl Huggins as executive director ahead of a July 1 opening.

Huggins, who completed earlier executive stints with Quixote Studios and Sunset Studios, will oversee operations at the 11 soundstage, 765,000 square foot studio campus in Astoria, Queens developed by The Deer Hunter and Killers of the Flower Moon star De Niro, his son Raphael De Niro and managing partner Adam Gordon.”

msn.com / Los Angeles Times

By Stephen Battaglio

May 15, 2024

“In Queens, a new facility called Wildflower, backed in part by Robert De Niro, will add 91,000 square feet of stage space.”

Variety

By Gregg Goldstein

November 1, 2023

“Wildflower Studios will unveil 11 vertically built soundstages totaling 198,000 square feet in Queens next summer. “Everything that’s needed is self-contained in each unit, so there are 11 independent carpentry shops, office spaces, sound areas and hair and makeup areas,” says managing partner Adam Gordon.”

New York YIMBY

By Michael Young

April 14, 2023

“Wildflower Studios, a seven-story film production studio at 35-15 19th Avenue in Astoria, Queens. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group and developed by Wildflower LTD, a venture backed by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro, and his son Raphael De Niro, the 145-foot-tall structure will yield 775,042 square feet”

Archinect

By Josh Niland

February 28, 2023

“The vertical media production village will be home to storytellers working across all mediums — a three-dimensional hub of collaboration, creativity, and innovation,” Ingels said at the project’s announcement last year. “While New York City is no stranger to being the star of many visual stories — the city effectively a character in itself — this first ground-up vertical production stage complex marks a new chapter in the city’s ability to create the stories of our future.”

Astoria Post

By Bill Parry

February 16, 2023

“Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday delivered remarks at a topping-off ceremony at the Robert DeNiro-backed $600 million Wildflower Studios construction site in Astoria. Adams signed the final steel beam that was then hoisted atop the superstructure of the state-of-the-art film production facility that is rising next to the Steinway Piano company along Luyster Creek.”

CNN

By Oscar Holland

February 8, 2022

“construction work on the 775,000-square-foot Wildflower Studios can now begin after the project won approval from the New York’s Department of Buildings, said design firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in a press release.

Dubbed the world’s “first vertical commercial film, television and creative studio,” the seven-story building in Astoria, Queens, is expected to house 11 sound stages”

By C. J. Hughes

December 4, 2020

The long lists of shows displayed on streaming sites, which seem to grow exponentially by the day, serve to tell you what’s on. But in New York City, they also might reveal a bit about the future of your block.

Many of the studios that produced the television series, which have turned New York into a small-screen production hub, are now planning to open new facilities or expand what’s already here, some in parts of the city that have been unfamiliar with such large-scale investment.

By Mary Diduch

February 10, 2020

Wildflower Studios closed on its purchase of a 5.25-acre waterfront parcel in Queens for about $71.6 million from piano-maker Steinway.

It plans to start building foundations for a massive film production facility this summer, and the first movies are expected to be shot at the studio about two years later, said developer Adam Gordon, president of Wildflower LTD.

By Mark Elwood

September 24, 2019

When I meet Bjarke Ingels in his firm’s surprisingly nondescript red brick office building in Copenhagen, the architect radiates a Tigger-like energy, even though he’s just stepped off a plane from Mexico. There isn’t a hint of jet lag while he sits to talk—or at least tries to. Constantly shifting in his chair, Ingels seems to be straining against the urge to get up and pace the room, or maybe do some calisthenics. Yet that restlessness will be essential if he’s to complete the extraordinary slate of projects underway—so many, in fact, that his 14-year-old firm will double its overall output in the next 18 months.

By Jordi Lippe-Mcgraw

September 24, 2019

Robert De Niro hopes to bring a little more Hollywood to New York City with the construction of a new movie studio in Queens, and the Oscar-winning actor has enlisted famed Scandinavian architect Bjarke Ingels to make it happen.

By Matthew Haag

July 10, 2019

Steiner Studios opened along the Brooklyn waterfront in 2004 as the largest film studio outside Hollywood. Television and movie productions had fled New York City for cheaper locations, and the new studio was trying to ignite a turnaround.

Nearly 15 years later, the industry has exploded.