With the help of up to $4 million in tax incentives, Netflix is beefing up its New York presence with an expansion of its Manhattan office and plans for a massive new production hub in Brooklyn.
The company’s new corporate offices will take up about 100,000 square feet at Normandy Real Estate Partners’ 888 Broadway, the governor’s office said in a statement. They will house 127 new employees working in departments including content acquisition, development, production and marketing — as well as the current 32 employees.
Last year, The Real Deal first reported that Netflix was in discussions to occupy 38,000 square feet at the building, formerly known as the headquarters of ABC Carpet & Home.
In Brooklyn, the company has leased roughly 161,000 square feet at 333 Johnson Avenue to build six sound stages and support spaces. The space is expected to have the capacity to house thousands of workers within five years, according to the release. Netflix has produced TV shows including “Orange is the New Black,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” and “Russian Doll.”
The Brooklyn property traded hands last year when Steel Equities bought it for $53 million. The Bethpage-based company purchased the warehouse from Normandy and its partners Princeton Holdings and Royalton Capital last year. Steel Equities was looking for a new tenant at the time. Normandy and its partners bought the property for $26.8 million in 2015.
To compete with other cities that were in the running, Empire State Development offered up to $4 million in performance-based Excelsior Tax Credits over 10 years. Netflix has to create 127 jobs by 2024 at its new office and retain the new and existing jobs over five years to receive the full incentive.
Incentives and tax breaks were a main point of opposition to Amazon’s failed plans for a new campus in Long Island City. The company had planned to bring 25,000 jobs to Queens over the course of a decade. But pushback, including from local politicians, led to Amazon canceling its plan and leaving $3 billion in city and state tax incentives on the table.