The East Fourth Street Cultural District, a group of six city-owned East Village buildings housing such organizations as New York Theatre Workshop and La MaMa E.T.C., has raised nearly half the money required to put the zone into force, Back Stage has learned.
According to Steve Herrick, executive director of the Cooper Square Committee, a local advocacy group, the city's deal to sell the buildings for $1 apiece remains active, along with the city's insistence that the not-for-profits inside each structure raise the funds to cover capital improvements. The total, originally estimated to be $7 million, has now been revised downward to about $5.3 million, and slightly more than $2 million overall has been raised to date.
The project calls for the buildings, at 59-61, 62, 64, 66-68, 70, and 72 East 4th Street, to be given to the groups once fundraising is complete. The buildings also house Millennium Film Workshop, Lower East Side Printshop, Instituto Arte Teatral Internacional (IATI), Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, Rod Rodgers Dance Company and Studios, Duo Theatre, WOW Café Theatre, Choices Theater Project (with Paradise Theater Company and Genre Pictures), Design East, Downtown Art, and four artists in residence. A proposal to shuffle the locations of some of the groups, Herrick said, is still possible but not impending.
Bounded by Second and Third avenues, the district will be aggressively promoted as a cultural hothouse, with a particular emphasis on the street's vibrant and historic Off-Off-Broadway roots. The plan was assembled and put forth last year by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development in tandem with the Cooper Square Committee.
The Kraine Theater and Red Room Theater, both at 85 East 4th Street, will not participate in the capital improvement phase but are considered equal members of Fourth Arts Block, the umbrella organization charged with spearheading culture-district activity.
Herrick added that the steps involved in the city selling the buildings -- the "Uniform Land Use Review Process" or ULURP -- is continuing apace. "We think the ULURP process is going to take about seven more months. Figure by November the city will be authorized to sell the buildings to the various groups that meet the requirements," he said, as he provided Back Stage with fundraising details on each group and/or structure.
At 59-61 East 4th Street, for example, "$2.35 million is needed to renovate a building with a mix of cultural and community development groups plus a number of residential tenants -- really, the most diverse building on the block," Herrick said. So far, roughly 40% of the funds are already committed.
Across the street, at 62 East 4th Street, the building housing Rod Rodgers Dance Company and Duo Theatre needs its renovation to be divided into phases; first up is a focus "on the façade and its distinctive spiral staircase." No figures are available.
Next door, at 64 East 4th Street, the building housing Choices Theater, IATI, and Teatro Circulo needs $1 million in improvements and has secured, from City Councilwoman Margarita Lopez, "a $500,000 pledge out of discretionary funds."
Adjacent to that, at 66-68 East 4th Street, are La MaMa E.T.C. and Millennium Film Workshop. The structure, Herrick says, "needs a few hundred thousand dollars" in work, and while fundraising is underway, figures are not yet available.
One door down, at 70 East 4th Street, the building containing Downtown Art and Alpha Omega Dance Company needs $750,000 for renovations and has generated about 10% of that figure to date.
At 72 East 4th Street, New York Theatre Workshop is actively involved in its capital campaign; no figures are available.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
In a 2003 Back Stage interview, Luiz C. Aragon, now the Department of Housing Preservation and Development's deputy commissioner of property services, said raising the millions of dollars needed for capital improvements is not impossible, despite a still-shaky economy. His office, he said, has been "educating [the organizations] about what it means to be a property owner, as opposed to a tenant. A major part of the whole exercise has been for the group or groups to bring in an architect or an engineer in order to determine the dollar amount of capital improvements that would be needed."
Which is why the long ULURP process is a good thing. "We only [transfer] the buildings if the groups show they are capable of raising the necessary funds, which is why this project is being handled on a building-by-building basis. If a building can prove it can fundraise for the renovations it needs, that's hunky-dory. If a building still needs to raise $500,000 and a year goes by, we will not dispose of that building -- the groups would have more time -- and there would be no impact on our ability to dispose of the remaining buildings."
Aragon added that he's optimistic the groups can meet their financial targets. "I can tell you with a degree of certainty that all the buildings, if not the vast majority, will be able to meet their goals; I have no reason to believe that won't happen. Remember, there are two very strong, well-funded anchors on the block -- New York Theatre Workshop and La MaMa -- that have been established for many years and are devoted to what they do and have strong fundraising infrastructures."
As for the smaller groups, which may have a harder time raising funds, Herrick said that's where his organization may be of service. Known for its housing and urban-renewal advocacy, the Cooper Square Committee was founded in 1959 when it successfully fought Parks Commissioner Robert Moses' plan to demolish 12 city blocks in the East Village. This time, the group is happy to offer technical support to those groups that need it. "We can play a role in creating economies of scale, such as sharing engineers and architects between groups, sharing legal counsels, and putting together construction schedules," Herrick said.