Kleeman Has A Starring Role in SL Green’s Movie Plans

For tenants wanting a space tour in an SL Green building, brokers may now recommend simply visiting the local cinema.

Just check out the upcoming Chris Rock comedy, I Think I Love My Wife, and you’ll see Rock parading around the offices of 485 Lexington, a building that SL Green purchased in 2004. Pay careful attention to the new Jodie Foster revenge flick, The Brave One, and you may catch Foster ducking through the marble lobby of 28 West 44th Street, another SL Green building.

The movie appearances are part of an effort by SL Green in recent months to more openly cater to movie productions in need of office, lobby, or rooftop settings. Coinciding with the resurgence of New York City film production due to city tax incentives, SL Green’s film friendly attitude has proven so far to be a well-timed method of extracting extra income from its 24.5 million s/f portfolio in the city.

Movie productions shooting office scenes generally prefer built out space that is furnished, so that the level of preparation needed to create a realistic office setting is minimized. By securing such space, productions can save on the more expensive alternative of having to rent a soundstage and build an office set from scratch.

The obstacle that productions have faced in recent months is a dramatically tightening Manhattan office market that has left few unoccupied spaces, especially those with high ceilings and great views, which are the kind that movies often look for when shooting office scenes.

SL Green has the potential to more consistently cater to film shoots because its holdings are so substantial, at any given time, a space is likely to be available somewhere in its portfolio.

Because leasing has been so strong in recent months, with tenants scrambling to snatch up spaces as vacancy rates continue to dip downward, these availabilities often get absorbed quickly, or are taken by an incoming tenant well before the prior tenant has moved out. Even still, between tenants there is almost always a window of vacancy, during which time renovations and build outs are often conducted. Traditionally, these are periods when landlords collect no income for the space. SL Green plans to convert them now into temporary but lucrative tenancies with shoots for movies, television shows and commercials whose production schedules can usually accommodate the limited periods of availability.

Spearheading the effort to bring productions into SL Green’s portfolio is James Kleeman, a business development and marketing manager at an SL Green subsidiary called eEmerge that handles the leasing of its parent company’s temporary office space. Instead of maintaining it merely as a side business of eEmerge, Kleeman hopes to soon spin the business of leasing space to movie productions into a separate SL Green subsidiary that will lease space outside of just SL Green’s portfolio as well. Kleeman said he will be able to potentially lure more productions by being able to offer them a wider variety of locations.

Film and television productions often have specific set requirements. For instance, a television pilot being produced by Matthew Weiner, a producer for The Sopranos needed a 1950’s era office setting, a look that called for space that was slightly rundown and antiquated. Knowing that 485 Lexington was vacant because the building was being renovated and that the prior tenant for much of the vacant space was Teachers Insurance, whose offices looked dated because thy hadn’t been renovated in nearly 30 years, Kleeman saw a perfect fit and the shoot was arranged. But Kleeman also realized that had the production come just a few months later, after the building’s renovation was complete, he might not have been able to pick out such space from a portfolio that has become almost homogeneously high end.

“SL Green already has a huge portfolio with a lot of spaces that are attractive to productions, but opening it up by including their landlords’ properties will help the business even more,” Kleeman said. “Some shoots want a swimming pool, or other kinds of unique spaces that we’d like to be able to offer.”

Kleeman said that his services would be attractive to landlords because he has become a known resource in the production business as a connection movie and television shoots tap when looking for space in Manhattan. Kleeman is also familiar with which types of space are in short supply, and knows when he can extract a premium.

“I’ve seen shoots that we haven’t handled where a landlord or restaurant owner lets a production into their space for far less that what I know I could have gotten them,” Kleeman said.

Kleeman’s expertise doesn’t just benefit the landlord. He’s also a resource for the film production.

“The real estate world and the movie production worlds don’t necessarily understand each other’s needs,” Kleeman said. “A movie might not understand that a certain part of a lobby or the building is off limits, they’ll bend the rules to get a shot even if it is disruptive to the building. And a landlord isn’t always sensitive to the artistic details that are so important in a movie shoot, like if a shot needs a particular view out the window, or the shoot needs a space where the outside light comes in a particular way at a certain time of the day. I’m there to find a way to meet the needs of the shoot but also to protect the landlord.”

Before joining SL Green, Kleeman served a similar role at Related Companies, where he was in charge of managing marketing and promotional events at the Time Warner Center.

Handling everything from book signings at the building’s Borders Bookstore, to the installation of promotional kiosks, to concerts and runway shows, Kleeman became versed in what it meant to simultaneously generate extra income for the building and promote it as a media and entertainment hotspot without compromising its image of luxury or allowing events to become disruptive to tenants.

It wasn’t always an easy balance to strike. Kleeman remembers when a beverage maker came to promote a new soda, an offering not exactly in line with the building’s high-end shops.

“It wasn’t exactly a groundbreaking offering, but we dolled it up by setting up virtual makeovers on flat screen televisions so while people tasted the new drink they could see what they would look like,” Kleeman said.

In addition to leasing space to movie productions, Kleeman still conducts the kind of deals he did during his time at Related.

To fill a vacant retail space in one of SL Green’s buildings, he just leased out the storefront temporarily to Evian Water, which is going to open a temporary promotional spa.