Culture Chronicle

Dance Group Gets Own Home in Harlem
Crain's New York Business - November 29, 2010
By Miriam Kreinin Souccar

National Dance Institute is building an 18,000-square-foot headquarters in Harlem.

The National Dance Institute, a nonprofit that brings dance education and training to public schools, is getting its own home.

The organization, founded in 1976 by former New York City Ballet dancer Jacques d'Amboise, announced Monday it was building an 18,000-square-foot headquarters in the base of PS90, a former school that is now a new mixed-income residential development at 220 W. 148th St. in Harlem. NDI paid $6 million for the space and plans to spend around $6 million more to renovate it. Construction is about to begin and the dance group is planning to move in this summer.

The new space, to be called the Center for Learning and the Arts, will not only serve as the home base for NDI staff and artists, but will also allow the group to offer expanded after-school and weekend programs, as well as teacher training classes and events.

"It will allow us to lay down roots and expand our reach at the same time," said Kathy Landau, executive director of NDI, which has an annual budget of around $3.5 million.

The new space will include four dance studios--the largest of which will also be used as a 175-seat performance space--and administrative offices. Currently NDI rents office space at 594 Broadway in SoHo, and runs programs at more than 30 schools in New York City.

To pay for the home, NDI also announced a $20 million capital campaign, more than half of which has already been raised. The largest grant so far was a $5 million lead gift from George Soros' Foundation to Promote Open Society. Ms. Landau said the campaign would also include funding to build an endowment and for program development.

The rehabilitation of PS90, which was formerly an abandoned public-school building, serves as the capstone of a collaboration between the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, L + M Development Partners, and Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement Inc., to transform an entire block of abandoned properties and lots into mixed-income buildings. Financing for the PS90 project was provided by Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s Urban Investment Group. For the full article, click here