CRAIN'S Film, video game school expanding at Burnham Center
(Crain's) — Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy is making no small plans for the Burnham Center downtown.
The two-year vocational school for aspiring film and video gaming professionals will expand its space in the Loop office building to as much as 150,000 square feet, an increase of 65,000, or 76 percent, in anticipation of potentially doubling its enrollment, says Howard Tullman, the school's president and CEO.
Tribeca Flashpoint wants to add more technology including augmented reality and motion capture, he says.
“We're constantly trying to stay ahead of the technology curve,” Mr. Tullman says. “We'll need space for those types of technology and training for our students.”
Tribeca Flashpoint's 15-year lease extension provides more high-tech use for an almost century-old building, the last designed by famous architect and city planner Daniel Burnham's firm before his death in 1912. The 21-story Beaux Arts building at 111 W. Washington St. was completed in 1914 and in recent years had primarily been home to small law firms and other tenants taking up smaller amounts of space.
That has begun to change. The building at Washington and Clark streets soon is to become the headquarters of GrubHub Inc., an online food-ordering service that will take 60,000 square feet downtown when it leaves its 19,000-square-foot office in Bucktown.
The Burnham Center is owned by an affiliate of Norfolk, Va.-based Harbor Group International LLC, which bought it for $79.5 million in 2007, the same year Mr. Tullman started the school.
Actor Robert De Niro's Tribeca Enterprises bought a 50 percent stake in the school in 2010, and it has grown from 100 students in the inaugural class to 600 now. The school prepares students for careers in fields such as film, broadcast and music production and video game design, and its revenue exceeded $12 million in 2011, Mr. Tullman says.
Already accredited, the school is in the process of applying to access Title IV federal grants, financial assistance that would open the $25,000-per-year program to more students, Mr. Tullman says.
Harbor Group and the Chicago office of CBRE Inc., which represents the building owners in lease negotiations, say Tribeca Flashpoint already has signed a lease to expand to about 104,000 square feet, adding more than 17,000 square feet in anticipation of growth. The building is now about 85 percent leased, according to CBRE senior associate Allison Olszta, who represents the building along with Robert Gillespie, a senior vice president.
Tribeca Flashpoint, represented by Colliers International Principal Daniel Arends, hopes to soon expand up to 150,000 square feet on the 15-year lease extension, Mr. Tullman says. That would allow for additional studios, classrooms and infrastructure such as additional servers to continue adding technology.
The school also has studio space at the Merchandise Mart and in the CBS television studio at 22 W. Washington St., Mr. Tullman says.
By spreading out to 150,000 square feet in the Burnham Center, the school would have room to double its enrollment to 1,200. Tribeca Flashpoint employs more than 150 and could boost its staff to 200, Mr. Tullman says.
“We've really seen a lot of these more innovative, technical companies moving from the outskirts of the city into the CBD,” says Jim Vallos, asset manager at Harbor Group. “A lot of it has to do with the proximity to the el system. The younger generation lives in the city. They want to live where they work and work where they live.
“We expect Flashpoint and GrubHub to continue to expand, and we're planning accordingly.”
Josh Tsui, co-founder of Chicago-based video game development studio Robomodo, says he is unfamiliar with Tribeca Flashpoint's new initiatives but believes there is a need for more advanced video-game expertise locally, should schools such as Tribeca Flashpoint, DePaul University and his alma mater, Columbia College Chicago, provide it.
“In terms of demand for qualified people who can come into a studio such as mine with an understanding of how to design and how to code, it's huge right now,” he says. “It's really hard to find good talent in Chicago for what we do. We definitely need better output from the schools in the area.”
Chicago still lags hotbeds such as those on the high-tech West Coast, says Mr. Tsui, whose firm was formed in 2008 and has about 30 employees. Part of the advantage other areas have is proximity to large video-game publishers such as Electronic Arts, Microsoft Corp., Activision and Sony, he says. Chicago is home to smaller game studios.
“Here, it's a lot more limited,” Mr. Tsui says. “We're so busy making the games, we're not a 500-person company that can send people out and mentor students.”