New 42nd Opens Studios In June: Rehearsal, Office & Studio Space for Non Profit Arts Groups | Playbill

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News New 42nd Opens Studios In June: Rehearsal, Office & Studio Space for Non Profit Arts Groups The New 42nd Street's chairman, Marian S. Heiskell and president, Cora Cahan, have announced the June opening of The New 42nd Street Studios. The facility will provide rehearsal, office & studio space for non profit performing arts groups.
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Sketch of the proposed New 42nd Street Studios. Photo by Rendering by Sean Daly

The New 42nd Street's chairman, Marian S. Heiskell and president, Cora Cahan, have announced the June opening of The New 42nd Street Studios. The facility will provide rehearsal, office & studio space for non profit performing arts groups.

An open house/media preview featuring live rehearsals is to be held on June 14 at the facility. Attending the open house will be New 42nd's Cora Cahan, Platt Byard Dovell Architects' Ray Dovell and Charles Platt, Vortexlighting's Anne Militello, and Pentagram Design's Paula Scher.

The New 42nd Street Studios are housed in an 84,000-square-foot, $29.6 million building located on West 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The ten-story structure features high design architecture. It shares the same block as other high-profile entertainment companies including the multi-screen AMC Empire 25 Theater, Disney’s New Amsterdam Theatre and SFX Entertainment’s Ford Center for the Performing Arts.

Certain tenants and long-term uses for the facility are already determined: New 42nd press materials indicate that the facility will serve as the headquarters of The New 42nd Street itself, as well as providing leased office space to performing arts organizations such as the neighboring Roundabout Theatre Company, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the Parsons Dance Company. [Parsons will participate in the open house preview by rehearsing in the facility along with the New Professional Theatre, Peter Pucci Plus and the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab.]

Construction on the facility was made possible by both public and private funding. The New 42nd Street says it secured $14.1 million -- including funding from the developers of the four office buildings at each corner of 42nd Street, as designated by the governing 42nd Street Development Project. Heiskell and Cahan subsequently embarked on a $15.5 million capital campaign that has raised $12.2 million to date. In terms of a funding breakdown, New 42nd materials state that the new Duke on 42nd Street Theater was named in honor of Doris Duke and in recognition of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s generous grant of $3.5 million. The New York Community Trust – LuEsther T. Mertz Advised Fund launched the campaign with a $1 million grant, and Senator Roy M. Goodman endorsed the project with a $500,000 appropriation from the Community Enhancement Facilities Assistance Program, administered by the Empire State Development Corporation. The City of New York and The Council of the City of New York designated a capital grant of $2.5 million in support of the campaign. Generous contributions from The New 42nd Street Board of Directors and the New York State Council on the Arts further helped to propel the campaign, building on other grants received from corporations, foundation and individuals. A recent gift of $1,750,000 from an anonymous donor already has sparked new gifts, and the remaining $3.3 million continues to be raised from the public and private sectors."

New 42nd said that additional outstanding naming opportunities include the rehearsal studios, office space, dressing rooms, lobby areas and the building as a whole. Another recent naming of a theatre in the area, the American Airlines Roundabout Theatre (the former Selwyn), provided a long-term multi-million dollar infusion to that company's operating budget, although it did generate controversy over the commercialization of Broadway.

On the ground level, the new studio facility features a lobby entrance adjacent to the American Airlines Theatre, as well as a retail space that will be controlled by the New 42nd. The 199-seat Duke on 42nd Street is located on the second floor and second floor mezzanine of the studio facility.

There are 14 studios occupying five floors of the building. They are described in press materials as "column-free, with sprung floors and ceiling heights of approximately 13 feet clear, and offer appropriate floor surfaces, sound systems, and secure storage areas. Rehearsal studios are supplemented by dressing rooms with showers, toilets, and lounge facilities. Offices and support spaces on three floors are pragmatically designed, with ceiling heights of 10 feet."

New 42nd president Cora Cahan predicts that the studio building "will immediately become a landmark in the heart of the Theater District...When you see it shining like a beacon -- and it literally does shine, thanks to the architects’ brilliant design -- you can say to yourself, ‘This is where artists do their work. This is where they take care of business.’”

Founded in 1990, by State and city officials, The New 42nd Street Inc. is "an independent, non-profit organization, charged with revitalization of seven historic theaters on West 42nd Street." A major developer in the area, New 42nd holds a master lease on properties on the block and controls 87,000 of the 320,000 square feet there.

-- By Murdoch McBride

 
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