NDI Makes Home at Goldman-Funded MF Project

NEW YORK CITY-The National Dance Institute, founded in 1976 by Jacques d’Amboise, is establishing its headquarters at PS90, a residential redevelopment on which L+M Development Partners and Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group are collaborating. Reportedly it's the first such permanent headquarters in the organization's 34-year history. NDI will also base its newly created Center for Learning and the Arts at the 18,000-square-foot PS90 community facility, located at 220 W. 148th St. in Harlem.

The NDI center will encompass the former auditorium at the disused P.S. 90, a city-owned property that was conveyed to a Goldman/L+M partnership by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. It will consist of four dance studios, administrative offices and a lobby/gallery. Originally built in 1905, the former public school came into HPD’s hands amid the mass disinvestment in the city in the 1970s.

At that time, 65% of the Harlem area’s vacant properties were taken over the HPD. The PS90 project is a centerpiece of the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to redevelop the last sizeable swath of vacant property: the West 148th Street block between Adam Clayton Powell and Frederick Douglass boulevards. The 290-unit residential component, which encompasses both affordable and market-rate housing, opened earlier this year.

“National Dance Institute’s new home at PS90 will not only complete the revitalization of this historic block, but we are confident that we’ve found an organization that will continue to enrich and benefit the community both here and abroad for years to come,” Ron Moelis, L+M’s co-founder, says in a release. “We are excited to pay homage to the building’s history as a place of learning and help NDI provide educational opportunities for children across New York and around the world.”

UIG has invested significantly in the 148th Street revitalization, acccording to a release. It’s also helping to finance the acquisition of the NDI space by providing $3.4 million through an allocation of New Market Tax Credits from housing developer McCormack Baron Salazar.