CIM Adds Film Studio to Watchtower Site

CIM Group is putting the “watch” in Watchtower, adding plans for a media production facility as part of the repositioning of the former Jehovah’s Witnesses headquarters.

The studio space at the Dumbo property is being marketed under the moniker Panorama Brooklyn Studios, Crain’s reported. It will include 60,000 square feet of production space and two 7,000-square-foot studios, one of which is ready for use immediately.

The developer tapped Backlot to market 90,000 square feet of production space at 25 Columbia Heights.

The production space is part of a much larger campus, spanning 680,000 square feet across two blocks in downtown Brooklyn. Cushman & Wakefield is marketing roughly 500,000 square feet of office space and 40,000 square feet of retail space.

The iconic 70-year-old “Watchtower” sign that lorded above the campus was torn down several years ago. CIM plans to replace it with signage to promote the film studio.

In 2017, CIM purchased the site from the Jehovah’s Witnesses for $340 million, one of the largest deals in the borough’s history at the time. CIM was joined in the deal by LIVWRK and Kushner Companies, but the latter pulled out of the development site in 2018, according to Brownstoner.

The new offering at the Columbia Heights campus joins the ranks of studios in the area angling to take advantage of the state’s generous tax credit, which Gov. Kathy Hochul’s latest budget increased to $700 million a year through 2034.

Last week, Vornado Realty Trust was revealed to be working on a film studio at Pier 94. Other incoming production facilities in and around the city include the $600 million Wildflower Studios in Astoria and Netflix’s $848 million studio going up in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

— Holden Walter-Warner