GREENWICH VILLAGE — The IFC Center is planning on doubling its capacity with an expansion into the vacant lot behind it.
An application filed with the city last week details a $5.3 million expansion that will add six new screening rooms, bringing the 10,328-square-foot movie theater up to 20,071 square feet.
The application, filed by Kliment Halsband Alejandro Diez, was first reported by YIMBY. The Department of Buildings said the application has not yet been reviewed.
The IFC confirmed the plan, and said the expansion is "crucially important."
"IFC Center has spent the past ten years celebrating filmmakers from New York and around the world by showcasing their documentaries, fiction features and short films for Greenwich Village audiences hungry for the best in contemporary and classic cinema," said IFC Center Senior Vice President & General Manager John Vanco in a statement. "Expanding our facility is crucially important in allowing us to continue to fill a unique and important cultural space in the downtown arts scene, as well as helping vital works of cinema get launched into broader release.”
The three-story IFC building at 323 Sixth Ave. would increase in height from 38 to 50 feet tall under Diez's plan, making it the same height as the buildings on either side of it.
This rendering shows the proposed rear of the expanded IFC building on the left, between the two buildings with fire escapes.
But the majority of the expansion is going to be horizontal, not vertical, according to renderings of the project provided by IFC.
Property owner William Friedland has owned the vacant lot behind the cinema, 14-16 Cornelia St., since 1985, according to city property records. The theater's expansion will bring the building's back wall to Cornelia Street, though the entrance will remain on Sixth Avenue, according to Indiewire.
Friedland and Diez did not respond to queries.
The IFC Center currently holds three screens on the ground floor, and two on the second floor. Diez's plan would add three theaters on the cellar floor, two able to hold 47 or 48 people, and one with 142 seats. The first floor would retain two theaters, one with 36 seats, and another holding 210 seats, with an additional 40 seats on a mezzanine level on the building's second floor.
Two other screening rooms are planned for the second floor as well, each accommodating 68 moviegoers.
The third floor will hold two more theaters, one with 50 seats and the other with 64 seats.
The plan requires the approval of the local community board and the Board of Standards and Appeals, as well as the DOB.
IFC told Indiewire last week that they have been in talks with Community Board 2 and local elected officials for about a month, and aim to go before the BSA late this year and or early next year. They are scheduled to appear before CB 2's landmarks committee on Sept. 16 at a 6:30 p.m. public meeting in Judson Church.
IFC last expanded in 2009, with the addition of two theaters to its original three. It opened in 2005, in place of the longstanding Waverly Theater, as WNYC reported in a 2005 interview with the theater's architect and a longtime Waverly usher.
