B’way trainer finds a home
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ensemble of Tony winners and other Great White Way luminaries have joined with a mentoring and training program for actors, the Open Jar Institute, to create a new rehearsal cluster right in Times Square.
The new Open Jar Studios will be located in the Crowne Plaza hotel at 1601 Broadway, which is now undergoing renovations by Vornado Realty Trust, the majority owner. Jeff Whiting, the artistic director of the Open Jar Institute, brought together a partnership of Broadway insiders from all disciplines to create the Open Jar Studios, which he will manage through Open Jar Productions.
The group includes the Shubert Organization and Music Theatre International;
Joshua Henry, the threetime Tony nominee who played Aaron Burr in “Hamilton” and now stars in “Carousel”; and a troupe of Tony winners in all categories.
“It’s the ideal space for us,” said Whiting of the two-year search conducted with Jef
frey Rosenblatt and James Cleary of Advisors Commercial Real Estate, which represented Open Jar in its 15-year deal and is an investor in the project.
The 51,436-square-foot facility will occupy the entire 11th and 12th floors, with part of the slab removed to create 24-foot-high ceilings needed for full rehearsals.
The asking rent was in the mid-$50s per square foot.
“There will be lots of mirrors and lots of pianos and lots of sprung floors,” Whiting said of the floors that “give” to save dancers’ knees.
Vornado was represented in-house by Glen Weiss, Andrew Ackerman and Kevin West along with the
JLL team of Frank Doyle, Cynthia Wasserberger and Hayley Shoener.
Whether or not it becomes the most popular golf course in the city, the new restaurant at Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point will be a winner.
Trump Organization Vice Presidents Don Jr. and Eric
Trump along with golfers who included course designer Jack Nicklaus, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau trekked to The Bronx to cut the black and gold ribbon on the new clubhouse.
In the audience was Eric’s wife, Lara, and nine-monthold Luke, plus Don Jr.’s new Fox friend, Kimberly Guilfoyle.
The 20,000-square-foot building, designed by Hart Howerton, has 15,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor event space, a pro shop and the restaurant.
Starting in July, it will be open to the public for breakfast, lunch and dinner and offer a respite from traffic plus East River and sunset views.
The city-owned course is leased by the Trumps, who completed a 7,400-yard, 18hole, Nicklaus-designed layout, where the black Trump helicopter was perched for the afternoon.
“He got it open,” Nicklaus told the brothers of their presidential father. “Your dad seems to get things done.”
Showfields has signed a lease to take the entire 11 Bond St. with 14,707 square feet.
The four-story retail building at the corner of Lafayette Street in Noho includes a basement and a 1,700-squarefoot roof terrace. Brandon Singer of Cushman & Wakefield repped Showfields, which is a direct-to-consumer retail outlet created by Tal Zvi Na
thanel. Now in “stealth mode,” Showfields will “play host to the world’s most in-
novative brands,” its Web site says.
Jordan S. Claffey of RFR Realty represented the ownership in-house along with Christopher Owles and a team at Sinvin Real Estate. The asking rent was $3.2 million per year. Hello Alfred has moved to 22,327 square feet at 61 Broadway previously occupied by Bjarke Ingels Group. The space was so pristine, Hello Alfred moved from 55 W. 19th St. the day after BIG moved to Dumbo. Dennis Someck and Justin Myers of Lee & Associates NYC represented the company, founded in 2014 by
Marcela Sapone and Jessica Beck to create time for people to do what they love.
Alfred signed a 10-year lease with rent in the low $60s per square foot. Daniel
Birney of RXR represented the company in-house alongside the Newmark
Knight Frank team of Hal Stein, Ben Shapiro, David Malawer and Todd Stracci. On the heels of Howard Milstein’s sale of his Seaport parking lot to Howard Hughes Corp. for $180 million, as first reported by The Post’s Steve Cuozzo, two brick, multifamily buildings catty-corner across the cobblestone Water Street are expected to sell for $30 million. The six-story 257 Water St. (with elevator) and four-story 23 Peck Slip have 20 freemarket apartments plus two restaurants and 7,000 square feet of air rights. Avison Young’s team of Brandon Polakoff, Phil Bowman, Charles Kings
ley and James Nelson, the new head of tri-state sales, is marketing the property, which is also known as Stove Factory Lofts.