$101M New Jersey investment fuels green movie studio growth
Key points:
- • NJEDA and Nuveen Green Capital closed a $101M C-PACE loan for Lionsgate Studios Newark.
- • Financing funds solar, EV chargers and water savings on a 12-acre, six-soundstage site.
- • NJ film spending hit $834M in 2024, fueling three major new studio projects statewide.
August 2026 — The latest development from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) is a clear signal of where New Jersey investment is heading right now: toward large, sustainability-linked real estate deals that blend industrial-scale construction with clean-energy financing.
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In Newark’s South Ward, steel is going up on a 12-acre lot where six soundstages will eventually anchor one of the busiest film production campuses on the East Coast — and the money behind it is as notable as the project itself. The NJEDA and Nuveen Green Capital announced the closing of a $101 million loan for Lionsgate Studios Newark, structured through the state’s Garden State C-PACE program.
The structure of the deal matters as much as its size. C-PACE financing lets developers borrow against future energy savings rather than conventional collateral alone, and in this case that means the loan is funding a 1.1-megawatt solar system expected to generate 1.34 million kilowatt-hours annually, seven electric vehicle charging stations, and building systems projected to cut electricity use by 388,000 kilowatt-hours and save 259,000 gallons of water each year. Great Point Studios, which owns and will operate the facility, is also building in career-training programming for Newark high-school students, tying the physical build to workforce development in a city that has spent years trying to convert real estate momentum into local jobs.
That local detail sits inside a much bigger national story. C-PACE financing — once a niche tool mostly used for retrofits — has scaled into a mainstream capital source, with more than 3,581 projects closed nationally and over $9.75 billion in total C-PACE investment supporting roughly 148,795 jobs. New Jersey’s own program is young — it only launched in July 2025 — yet the state has already closed more than $176 million in Garden State C-PACE financing, with the Lionsgate deal making up the vast majority of all C-PACE activity to date .
For a state competing with Georgia, New York, and other production hubs for studio dollars, being able to offer developers a financing tool that lowers the cost of green building compliance is becoming a genuine differentiator, not just an environmental talking point.
The film-industry backdrop explains why lenders are willing to underwrite a project this large. In-state production spending hit an estimated $834 million in 2024, topping the previous record of $701 million set in 2022, a run built on New Jersey’s 40% base tax credit for qualified production expenses under its Studio Partner program. Lionsgate Newark isn’t an isolated bet — it’s one of three major studio buildouts underway in the state alongside Netflix’s project at Fort Monmouth and 1888 Studios in Bayonne. Together, they represent a coordinated push to convert a tax-credit advantage into permanent physical infrastructure, the kind of capital-intensive commitment that’s harder to relocate than a single production shoot.
NJEDA Chief Executive Officer Evan Weiss framed the financing as proof of concept for the state’s broader economic strategy, saying the support for Lionsgate under the Garden State C-PACE program “exemplifies the tremendous economic opportunities available for businesses while simultaneously bolstering the state’s booming film and television industry.”
That framing matters for how officials are pitching New Jersey investment to outside capital: not as a single-sector bet, but as a layered strategy where clean-energy incentives, production tax credits and workforce commitments reinforce one another inside the same deal.
Construction on the Newark campus is expected to wrap in 2027. If Garden State C-PACE keeps attracting large, complex projects at the pace it has in its first year, expect more developers — in entertainment, logistics and beyond — to structure New Jersey deals around energy-savings financing rather than treating it as an afterthought.
Want more? Read the Invest:New Jersey report.
