(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

Welcome to a compelling conversation with a long time guest.

Tim Sullivan, CEO, of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the website will come up.

Tim, hey, how you doing?

- [Tim] I'm doing great, Steve, how are you?

It's great to be with you.

- It's great to be with you and also let me disclose that the EDA is an underwriter of our programming.

One of the areas they're underwriting, supporting, is the film, television, and, "digital media world," in the state.

Be specific Tim, how are you supporting these industries and what is the payoff?

- Yeah, under Governor Murphy's leadership, we are all in on film and TV.

We think New Jersey's got a chance to be the East Coast hub for film and TV.

Of course, we're the birthplace of film and TV, doing our best to win it back.

Thomas Edison invented the motion picture camera in West Orange and Fort Lee was Hollywood, before Hollywood.

We're spending a tremendous amount of time investing tax credit programs that Governor Murphy brought back in 2018 that have had a huge, huge impact on our ability to be competitive in film and TV.

- So let's talk about this more specifically, three new production studios in the works.

Netflix Fort Monmouth, Lionsgate in Newark, 1888 Studios in Bayone.

Netflix Fort Monmouth, talk about that.

- Really exciting, so Fort Monmouth, when that closed a decade or so ago, devastating to the Monmouth County community, 15,000 or so jobs vanished more or less overnight.

Under Governor Murphy's leadership, we've taken a huge swing at redeveloping Fort Monmouth and getting Netflix to commit to building a nearly billion dollar campus on almost 300 acres of Fort Monmouth, we think is a game changer for the New Jersey economy.

- It's interesting, you've said under Governor Murphy's leadership, explain the role of the EDA, because the EDA is not in the government, but connected to, but you're quasi, no?

- Well, yeah, we're in the government.

I'm part of the governor's cabinet and in the government and we're a public employee, so we work really closely with the private sector, but we're in the government, but not of treasury.

- But not of treasury?

- Yeah, but we're all public sector workers here doing our best.

And so we work really closely with, of course, the governor and the governor's office, our partners throughout government and then folks like Choose New Jersey as well, who are (indistinct).

- Talk about Lionsgate.

I'm sorry for interrupting Tim, there's always a, talk about digital media, there's always a little delay.

Lionsgate in Newark, describe it.

- Really exciting, so this is in the south ward of Newark, right by Newark Airport.

Former public housing development that had been vacant for 10 or 15 years, is now flat land on its way to being built this summer and fall into a 250,000 square foot first rate production facility for Lionsgate, who's gonna make movies and TV shows right in Newark, which means a ton from a diversity and inclusion perspective.

We think there's gonna be tons of jobs for folks in the south ward, folks in Newark to support this industry.

- Tim, break down what tax subsidies, there's 700, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the website will come up right now.

It's tax credits, tax subsidies, explain what the heck that really means to the average person and how it incentivizes private sector entities in film industry, digital media, to wanna be in the state.

What's the hook?

- Yeah, so I mean, New Jersey's hook, first and foremost is our location and our talent.

We've got great, great studio facilities that are under development.

We've got great locations on which to shoot.

We've got great talent, whether that's crews or folks in front of the camera.

But the way that the film and TV industry works is that tax credits are, for lack of a better word, table stakes, you've gotta have them to be competitive.

So Georgia, New Jersey, New York, even California, puts tax credits on the table for supporting these.

So these are essentially a refund on some of your costs.

In most cases, it's 30% or 35% of what you spend in New Jersey you get back in the form of a tax credit.

But we think the return for the taxpayers is extraordinary, because of the jobs and the support for small businesses that come when a movie comes to town.

- Tim, there have been critics who have questioned the specific job creation and the economic impact and whether, "the payoff," the ROI, if you will, return on investment is worth it, make the case.

- Yeah, I think for one thing, we've already seen thousands of new jobs created in New Jersey in the early days of this film renaissance and that's only gonna grow from here when we have the studios like Netflix and Lionsgate and 1888 come online, because those are gonna be permanent jobs.

Like, one of the critiques of the film industry is that some movie comes town for a few weeks and that's great, but then they're out of there and they're onto their next show, onto their next movie.

One of the reasons Governor Murphy has really emphasized the brick and mortar studio development is those are permanent jobs.

So Netflix is a great example, it's gonna be a billion dollar campus.

They're gonna keep that thing full, if not 24 hours a day, certainly year round and that's gonna mean lots of permanent jobs, not just in the film and TV industry directly, but also suppliers.

They're gonna eat a lot of food, they're gonna use a lot of dry cleaning, they're gonna need a lot of set design, they're gonna need carpenters, electricians and all kinds of great union jobs in those endeavors and so, tons of permanent job creation.

- Tim, what is, "Film-ready New Jersey?"

It's describes as, "Film-ready New Jersey."

Described as a, "Five step program educating municipalities on media production."

I don't understand, like what is it and what's the impact?

- It's a really important program.

Something, the first lady Tammy Murphy's been a real champion of.

So we've got 564 municipalities all throughout the state.

You're from Hollywood or from London or whatever, You drop into New Jersey, may not know the difference between different towns and different towns have different rules.

You have a different police chief, you have a different fire inspector, you got a different building inspector.

So we're trying to help towns get ready to host and welcome the film industry and to the TV industry.

So the good news is it's spread all throughout the state.

- You mentioned the First Lady.

We've had Tammy Murphy on, check out our website, SteveAdubato.org, talking about Nurture NJ, the NJEDA, the Economic Development Authority, is engaged and involved in the Maternal and Infant Health Innovative Center, which the First Lady is advocating its initiative there.

Why would the Economic Development Authority be involved in these matters?

What does it have to do with, "The economic vitality of this state?"

- Yeah, we're really excited to be helping out with the Maternal Infant Health Innovation Center, which again, the first lady's been an extraordinary champion for, from the earliest days of the administration.

And a couple things, one, we have a history and a legacy of building buildings that need to be built for the state and so we are likely to be, we've been advancing the development of what is going to be this physical center, this probably 50,000 to 60,000 square foot center in Trenton that's gonna be host to a really important set of activities.

But that's really gonna have, we hope a positive economic impact on Trenton.

It's first mission is to help the moms and babies, particularly Black and Latina moms in Trenton, that's its mission first and foremost.

But it's gonna, we think have a huge community vitality effect in Trenton.

So we're talking about having, not just a clinical presence, but a higher ed presence, so more folks coming into Trenton every day, actually from around the country to be trained in the latest and greatest maternal and infant health innovation orientation sort of type programs, as well as hopefully leveraging our great legacy in pharmaceuticals and life sciences to help drive innovation and have some startups that are connected to this effort in Trenton as well.

- Before I let you go, Tim, if someone goes on the website, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority website, is it for the average citizen to understand what's going on?

Or is it more for municipalities and others who do business with the state or both?

- Yeah, I'd say it's all the above.

I think with under Governor Murphy's leadership, we have really broadened what the EDA does, particularly around small businesses.

So starting there in the pandemic and then now into whatever period we're in now, we're now supporting thousands of small businesses every year.

So those are often one, two, three person places on a main street, the prototypical pizza shop or dry cleaner or whatever.

So we wanna make sure we're getting the word out, but we can never do a good enough job getting the word out about the programs that the state's put in place to support particularly small businesses, but really businesses of every size.

- Tim Sullivan, CEO of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the website has been up throughout the segment.

Find out more about the work they're doing.

Thank you, Tim, appreciate it.

- Great to be with you as always, Steve.

- You got it, stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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