HARLEM — Uptown’s first and only dedicated LGBT Center is expected to open next month in Harlem — where it can begin to provide services while awaiting its permanent home.
The center will open in an interim location at 115 East 115th St. in February, allowing groups to be able to use it to host regular meetings, small events, and plan larger gatherings while awaiting its permanent space.
Its future home will be on the ground floor of a 300-unit development set to replace a string of vacant row houses on 124th street between Eighth and Ninth avenues. Construction on that project is expected to finish in two years, according to Edward Poteat, the president of Carthage Advisors.
"This project is huge,” said Brian Benjamin, chair of Community Board 10's land use committee. “I think we should all feel like we are part of history here. This is the kind of development we want to see in Harlem.”
Carmen Neely, president of Harlem Pride, called the project “a dream come true."
"I’m ecstatic,” Neely said. “It’s been a long time coming and this community has worked very hard for this so we are just overjoyed.”
Half of the 300 residential units located atop the future LGBT center will be affordable housing, starting at 40 percent AMI. A quarter of them will be market rate rentals, and the rest will be sold as condominiums, Poteat told CB10.
There will also be a rooftop lounge that will double as a community performance space, he added.
Opening an LGBT Center Uptown was one of the main needs identified at Harlem’s LGBT town hall meeting last year.
Representatives from dozens of LGBT organizations including trans-specific organizations and others who work primarily with the black and Latino LGBT community attended last week's presentation.
The meeting was organized to address the needs of the growing gay community uptown, which Neely and other advocates called the unofficial home of black and Latino LGBT members.
When completed, the center is expected to be a one-stop-shop for health and social services as well as a hub for all LGBT groups.
Organizers see it as Uptown’s version of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in the West Village, Neely said.
While the project is still in the planning stages and must go through the ULURP process, it has the support from officials including Borough President Gale Brewer, who said, “I think that the community center is something that we should all focus on.”