Area Development
VICE Media, a global media company producing and distributing premium digital media across multiple platforms, will invest $20 million to expand its worldwide headquarters in Brooklyn, New York.

The company will equip and renovate the space into a new state-of-the-art production facility, which will include a complete post-production facility with full broadcast capabilities, edit suites, and screening rooms. The project will result in creation of a projected 525 new jobs and the retention of over 400 existing jobs.

“New York is the media and entertainment capital of the world, and it serves as the perfect location for the global headquarters of a fast-growing multimedia company like VICE,” said Empire State Development President/CEO/Commissioner Kenneth Adams. “We are proud to support their continued growth in Brooklyn as they create new economic opportunities for hundreds of New Yorkers.”

VICE, which was founded in Montreal in 1994 and moved to Brooklyn in 1999, has grown from a niche counterculture magazine into a pioneering, global multimedia brand. The company has utilized its Williamsburg location as the headquarters for its 36 foreign bureaus and for a large majority of its post-production and editing work for its on-line channels, as well as for its show on HBO.

“Brooklyn is our home and we're already hard at work developing a space-age utopia that will give today's creative visionaries a place to produce astonishing stories and leave their indelible thumbprint on the annals of history,” a VICE Media spokesperson said.

To encourage VICE to significantly invest in and expand its headquarters in Brooklyn, ESD has offered the company $6.5 million in performance-based Excelsior Jobs Program Tax Credits, which are tied directly to the creation of a projected 525 new jobs over a five year period. VICE also will retain over 400 existing jobs and invest $20 million to equip and renovate its new headquarters. Before deciding to move forward with the New York expansion, the company had considered growing jobs, over 300 in new video and post production positions, in its existing Los Angeles production facility.

Kyle Kimball, President, New York City Economic Development Corporation said, “Vice has Brooklyn in its DNA, and we congratulate them on their plans to expand in one of the most stimulating urban communities in the world. The millions of dollars VICE is investing and hundreds of New Yorkers who will be hired are sure to drive the company to new heights of success.”