By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — Dance New Amsterdam, a beloved downtown dance studio, is in danger of being evicted for not paying its rent.
Dance New Amsterdam owes about $750,000 to landlord Fram Realty and could lose its space at 280 Broadway, the landmark Sun Building, as soon as next week.
“It has become obvious that we cannot pay the rent,” said Kate Peila, Dance New Amsterdam’s executive director.
Fram Realty leases out the space on behalf of the city, which owns the building. So Peila, 47, has asked the city to to mitigate the $68,945 monthly rent Fram is charging. Nearly half of the rent goes to the city as property taxes.
Noah Pfefferblit, district manager for Community Board 1, said he hoped the dance studio could stay open to continue serving local residents.
“We don’t have that many cultural institutions in lower Manhattan,” Pfefferblit said at a meeting of CB1’s Arts Taskforce last week. “We need more — we don’t want to lose the ones we have.”
Fram Realty could not be reached for comment, and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, did not immediately return calls for comment.
Peila took over Dance New Amsterdam in 2008, when the nonprofit was in the verge of bankruptcy. Since then, she has cut costs by about $700,000 and started new programs for at-risk youth, seniors and the disabled, she said. The 26-year-old studio has served about 32,000 people a year, offering classes, performances and an incubator for rising dance stars.
Peila is also pursuing a partnership with Pace University to create a contemporary dance department based at the studio, which would bring in more money.
But that won't happen in time for the court hearing July 14, at which Fram will seek to evict the studio. Dance New Amsterdam has already been granted three stays on previous eviction orders, and Peila said she is not giving up.
“I’m going to chain myself to the building if I have to,” she said.
