Announcer:
Hey BK with Ofer Cohen
Doug Steiner:
Developer is still my real job, the studio was like my midlife crisis.
Ofer Cohen:
Doug Steiner is a Jersey born real estate developer and now fully immersed in Brooklyn. He lives in Williamsburg and most recently he has developed the hub, the tallest building in Brooklyn, but he's best known for Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The largest film and television studio outside of Los Angeles. In our conversation Doug talks about how he became a key force behind the Brooklyn's rebirth. He stuck with the studio taking on the first major redevelopment in the abandoned Navy Yard in 1999.
Doug Steiner:
It was dead when I started. There were packs of wild dogs running around, literally just looked like bombs and got off and nobody wanted to be there. We had to tread carefully with the city. Uh, we figured out that the site needed a lot of infrastructure. Infrastructure being utilities, that were over a hundred years old, we needed a $28,000,000 worth of infrastructure met with the corporation counsel for the city of New York, Michael Hess on the Friday before 9/11 and shook hands that the city would provide the infrastructure that you know, went out the window once 9/11 hit. Our neighbor sued us because they claimed we didn't have permits that claim to us, alluded neighbors outside, some of the Hasidic community was against it because they felt like it was going to change the character of the neighborhood and they're worried about the outside world. The quote from the Grand Rabbi at the time was that movie stars, were going to move in and steal their women.
Ofer Cohen:
Well that didn't happen.
Doug Steiner:
And now I have a very good relationship with the community. I'm glad to say.
Ofer Cohen:
So this is completely out of whack.
Doug Steiner:
I had no business doing this. I didn't know what I was doing. I just thought it was an easy no brainer and nothing is easy. Nothing is a no brainer.
Ofer Cohen:
At that point, was your dad was involved?
Doug Steiner:
My Dad was somewhat involved. I've been running the company for 25 years at this point.
Ofer Cohen:
So what was your dad saying?
Doug Steiner:
I just do my thing, but about six weeks after I signed up the deal, I started divorce and really I say, and it's really true, the studio would not have gotten built if I had not been so distracted by my divorce. It was a real acrimonious divorce. Took five and a half years and my head was not where it should have been. So I had milestones to meet for the city and the Navy Yard and I got more and more invested and before I knew it I was really invested pretty heavily and there was no turning back. But had I not been going through a divorce and you're more focused on what I know. It would've never happened. As it got closer to completion, I completely freaked out. I really, really stressed out that I was in over my head, you know, what I was doing and new industry, unproven in New York City at that point because the business was more of, only thing shooting in New York was law and order and the occasional Woody Allen.
Ofer Cohen:
Right. So six months before the studio was set to open the Steiner family lobbied for tax credit for film production in New York state.
Doug Steiner:
And that was signed into law essentially at a ribbon cutting with Mel Brooks, Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, in our first production was the remake of the producers, by Mel Brooks. At the time, all we heard was no one will ever go to Brooklyn, you guys are crazy. And at the time Brooklyn was not a popular destination and was a second choice of best. I think luckily it turned out to be one of the transformative projects for Brooklyn. I think Barclays, I think Brooklyn Bridge Park, I think our project, I think what Walentas did in Dumbo, and I think the rezoning Williamsburg, what really were the catalyst. But our business is very difficult, if not impossible to finance. There are no long term leases. These companies come for a feature film or a season of television, no guarantee or subsequent seasons that season isn't even a full year. And some dependence on that tax credit, which has to get renewed every few years so it's difficult.
Ofer Cohen:
And you still run the studios?
Doug Steiner:
I work in the studios and own the real estate business.
Ofer Cohen:
That's like two different, completely, two different brawls, two different jobs
Doug Steiner:
The studio businesses more fun because it's much more dynamic. We have 1200, 1500 people on the lot on a given day. If it's everyone that shooting in that same day, and to have that many people happy to be at work and loving what they do. There's a vibe that I have never felt anywhere else in any other business in my real estate life. And also I've never felt that LA lots it's just doesn't, it's not the same as New Yorkers all working in this cool environment that nobody really knows about and it's behind a wall. But that's great.
Ofer Cohen:
How do you convince a big productions to do this in Brooklyn.
Doug Steiner:
We have the only real LA style lot in New York City and that's a function of being in the Navy Yard where we have 60 acres, a private gated entrance, all the security they need and really state of the art facilities similar to what they'd have in LA and we've eliminated all the obstacles to working in New York. So I think that's really why we have our success. And what I like about the businesses, it's a handshake business. It's a small community, you know, a dozen, two dozen top producers in New York City. They all talk to each other and if you tell them you're going to do something, you better do it. Purely, it's a service business. The physical plant is only part of it. I used to think, you know, it's all about the building, about the design, about construction, it really doesn't matter if the people that work there don't really jump through hoops to accommodate our customers. And I used to think that was lip service from company said it's all about people. I thought it was bullshit. I think it's really true. And the best compliment that was paid was a producer who came back at about a year after we opened for another show. And he said, I have to tell you Doug, I've never heard any of your people tell me no. They always said, let me see how I can do that for you. That was really the highest compliment. I think I could have received.
Ofer Cohen:
Yeah and I'm assuming in LA that that may not be, that might not always be the vibe.
Doug Steiner:
I think in LA they take the business for granted, I think there's a lot more nepotism through the generations and I don't think they have the same New Yorker grit and get it done attitude. And I think because work was so scarce here for so long, if there's the gratitude, um, and and an intensity that they don't get up there.
Ofer Cohen:
Doug says, production in New York City is now booming almost year round in part because of the explosion of shows for digital outlets such as Netflix and Amazon. His passion lies in the studio. Though, he describes a constant struggle over the need to expand at the yard.
Doug Steiner:
From what I'm told, it was about a $5,000,000,000 business before we came in and now they say it's like a seven and a half, eight. I'm saying it's a $10,000,000,000 business, easily a direct and indirect jobs at the margin are about 80,000 are a lot of level and at full build out at 60 acres will be one point 8 million feet of space 160 acres and five, 6,000 people. We want to be the content creation immediate district for New York and the creative classes based in Brooklyn. We lucked out in terms of being in the right place and we are around the water, seeing the water every day is great. And we have this light and air and historical infrastructure and I think pretty good design and ambiance that I think is what people really respond to. The number of productions ranges from at this point five to ten at any given time and different production run from 250 to 350 plus actors I would say be very satisfying to look out for my office and see a very full parking lot, economic boost that the create how we got the credit passed by by demonstrating that, and if you think about all the locations they pay to be at, even just nonprofits, I think it's been phenomenal for a lot of different institutions and it's just it saved some businesses upstate, that would have gone bust without a shoot happening. I think prior to what we were able to do with tax credit and have first class facilities. Everyone thought you had to go to LA to have a career in film or TV. And I think we have changed that profoundly. And there's no reason why New York can't be on par. Same amount of business as la overall right now, new stuff is more in New York and in LA. I think over time New York can equal it and then surpass it and I think part of that it's because it's a much more diverse workforce here and I think that makes for a better product and it's a more culturally enriching space.
Ofer Cohen:
Meanwhile, Doug has also taken on some of the most exciting real estate projects now underway in Brooklyn.
Doug Steiner:
Developer is still my real job, the studio is like my midlife crisis.
Ofer Cohen:
Doug is bringing the high quality supermarket Wegman's to the Navy Yard. Construction is complete at the hub, the rental tower in Downtown Brooklyn.
Doug Steiner:
It's funny. It was under construction, the foundations of pilots and our construction manager, a third party construction manager told me: "You know we're the tallest building in Brooklyn", no we're not. He's like, yeah we are like, okay, I'll take your word for it, but that was never the objective,
Ofer Cohen:
But that's good because that's a temporary kind of. If that was the object, it wouldn't last too long,
Doug Steiner:
It's nice to say, tallest buildinging in Brooklyn and once we're not anymore, we'll say we were the tallest building in Brooklyn in uncompletion. That's what i see people do with buildings. I've never built a high rise. My Dad who's 88 and still working his dream had always been to build a skyscraper. So I think partly it was my gift to him, let him have some stress and build a skyscraper. But I wanted to build rental and I don't like a lot of brain damage. So we did an 80/20 project.
Ofer Cohen:
As Steiner tries to develop his company's name brand. He has moved away from his roots in New Jersey. He's developing projects in the East village and all over Brooklyn.
Doug Steiner:
I think this business, it's a long gestation period for real estate, five, seven years for a project from start to finish. And who knows where the market will be when you're done. So my philosophy is you pick a fight to pick a great location and build a really solid product that will be somewhat timeless in its design and try for timeless and hope for the best.
Ofer Cohen:
So you're talking about what makes you sort of what makes you happy and proud. Look outside your window and seeing all the people working and doing what they love at the Yard. When you look at the tallest building in Brooklyn that you didn't know it's going to be the tallest that may not be the tallest forever. What makes you proud on that project? Of the hub.
Doug Steiner:
I've never built such publicly visible products before as the studios and now the hub a high rise and I do feel pretty good in the side and take the subway over the bridge and I see the hub in the distance and then I see the radio antennas we have in lined up at the studio. It's kinda weird. Happy to see my impression on the skylines. It's embarrassing to say, but it's cool when I never, I don't think I set out to do that. But it's a nice effect.
Ofer Cohen:
The real development business is known for a lot of Egos and you know, I guess you're not, a good fit with the crowd of like, you know, real estate people. All the real estate developers all they care about actually is to be the tallest building on the skyline. Right?
Doug Steiner:
Right. I just want to build something that I think is really attractive and it doesn't hurt an area, but it improves it or advances it. When we built in Williamsburg, that was my first residential project. We had a performance artist dance, a figure. She had like three or five years left on her lease for a building there. And I didn't really want to get into a fight with her to get her out early. So we worked with her and the end the city so that she could buy her building at our cost. And my thinking was, it wasn't so noble, it was really to get good press and looked like I was a good guy. Turned out I love this woman, nearly Elizabeth Strebb. She's crazy and brilliant. We were able to convince our partner and the city, that she could buy her building at our cost. And I feel good about it in hindsight. I feel great because I didn't chase out what was attractive about the neighborhood in the first place. I helped stabilized it. I'm there. My kids love it and I feel a little old though, I feel like I live on a college campus.
Ofer Cohen:
Yeah, Williamsburg has a certain feel get off the L train on Beford and it's just something that's really hard to replicate, the energy.
Doug Steiner:
It's developing and changing so fast and in such creative ways, in artistic ways that amount of a concentration of creativity and change I think is remarkable. But it's still a 20 to 35 year old crowd. When I started in Brooklyn, you know, we would never see a stroller in Williamsburg, went out to lunch park anywhere on the street, there were three or four good restaurants and you know, it was super mellow and everyone was super cool and living in lofts or squatting so far. And it's a very different crowd now, you know, the artsy edge has gone for most of it because it's just got, the artists have been priced out, but they left a pretty indelible stamp
Ofer Cohen:
Looking back, Doug says he's proud of the impact he's had on Brooklyn.
Doug Steiner:
When the studio was nearing completion and I thought it was going to be a complete failure. I thought it was going to personally bankrupt me, and I'd have to start new, it was really traumatic worse then my divorce.
Ofer Cohen:
This was when it was completed?
Doug Steiner:
Just when it gets getting completed and bleeding money and not knowing what I was doing.
Ofer Cohen:
And not knowing knowing where the productions are going to come?
Doug Steiner:
And then just the having invested heavily in something I know nothing about in a place I'd never developed and just thinking I really screwed up and when I say aged, you know, 15, 20 years. It's really true, and the upshot though, after all this is the last 10 years are the best 10 years of my life with my kids, it's the best thing I've done. I was living, working, developing in New Jersey. I say it's like the proverbial frog being boiled alive on low heat, on an open clot, realize it, but it's really changed my life to be here, is developing in the major leagues. I think I'm holding my own. It was very satisfying about my dad's shadow, which I think a problem 10, 15 years ago. I get along great with my ex wife so you know, a happy ending.
Ofer Cohen:
Doug Steiner, Thank you so much.
Doug Steiner:
Ofer, thanks.
Ofer Cohen:
You’re listening to Hey Bk, the podcast about the people behind Brooklyn's transformation. You can find us at heybk.nyc or wherever you get your podcasts. Please download and subscribe to our episodes. I'm Ofer Cohen. Thanks for listening.