OWC secured a segment on ABC7 for The Fields Studios
Month: May 2023
OWC Obtained Coverage for The Fields Studios in Crain’s Chicago Business
Movie studios and production companies that need space in Chicago to shoot their next show will soon have a new option: the Fields Studios on the Northwest Side. Construction of the $250 million project at a former Marshall Field’s warehouse is underway, and its developer, New York-based Knickpoint Ventures, said today that the studios should open in the first quarter of 2024. The studios, which will include nine sound stages, will eventually employ 600 to 800 people and will improve Chicago’s standing as a destination for movie studies and production companies, said Zain Kolta, founder and managing partner of Knickpoint.
Read the full coverage: Developer plans $250 million studio campus in Northwest Side
OWC Secured Coverage in The Chicago Tribune for The Fields Studios
Knickpoint Ventures held a topping-off ceremony Monday for The Fields Studios, what the company bills as Chicago’s first purpose-built film studio, at the former Marshall Field’s warehouse campus on the Northwest Side. The developer bought the site in 2018 and plans to complete construction and open nine soundstages, along with creative and production offices, by early next year.
Zain Koita, the company’s founder and managing partner, said the 21-acre site at 4000 W. Diversey Ave. in the Avondale neighborhood, built in 1928 but closed by Macy’s in 2008, will once again provide thousands of high-paying jobs.
“This has always been an economic driver of the neighborhood, except for the past 10 years, and our goal was to return it to that state,” he said. “The film industry is generally unionized from top to bottom, and that’s great for Chicago.”
Read the Full Article: Developer transforming Northwest Side’s Marshall Field’s complex into Chicago’s latest film studio
OWC Secured a Feature for The Fields Studios in Variety
Chicago is about to join the growing list of cities where new soundstage construction will boost the local entertainment economy. The Fields Studios – the city’s first purpose-built and, to date, largest film production complex – will open in the first quarter of 2024.
Owned and developed by real estate firm Knickpoint Ventures, the new campus occupies the site of the former warehouse and distribution center for the city’s legendary Marshall Field’s department store and its retailers across the U.S. It includes nine soundstages on two lots totaling 132,000 square feet of stage space and over 350,000 square feet of creative and production offices, plus mill and support space, on over 20 acres in Chicago’s Northwest Side.
“This project is another key landmark in our growing film and TV scene, which reached record revenue numbers in 2022,” said Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. “We’re telling important stories… with union labor with an eye to ensuring historically disadvantaged Chicagoans are given an opportunity to get their start in the industry through workforce development programs designed to increase diversity.”
Zain Koita, Founder and Managing Partner of Knickpoint Ventures, is confident the new studio will thrive despite the prevailing economic headwinds now faced by the entertainment industry. “The economy as a whole is reorganizing itself, and entertainment industry is no different,” he says, adding that the industry’s present difficulties are “just a blip on the radar; we’re long-term oriented.”
Further, Koita believes, that film production in Illinois is “underappreciated and underinvested” and that the state’s tax credit “has gone largely unutilized because there are very few studios that are up and operating that can house major productions.” The new project will fill that gap, he says.
Read the full article: Film Production Center The Fields Studios Rises in Chicago
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