Park Slope’s Pavilion Theater to go resi

Hidrock Realty bought the property in 2006 for $16M; previously said "no merit" to conversion rumors

Hidrock Realty's Abraham Hidary and the Pavilion Theater at 188 Prospect Park West in Park Slope
Hidrock Realty's Abraham Hidary and the Pavilion Theater at 188 Prospect Park West in Park Slope

UPDATED 7:45 p.m., April 22: The Pavilion Theater in Park Slope is going residential.

Hidrock Realty, a Herald Square-based firm that bought the iconic Art Deco property at 188 Prospect Park West for $16 million in 2006, is planning to convert the property and add 24 residential units to the building, according to a permit application filed with the city’s Department of Buildings Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the developer said on Wednesday afternoon that Hidrock is planning on leaving the building intact, but plans to heavily renovate the interior. Hidrock is contemplating opening a more “sophisticated” movie theater in the building’s commercial portion, the spokesperson said, and would be more “reasonably sized.” It is, he added, “the end of the existing theater.”

In a statement, City Council Member Brad Lander, who represents District 39, said that he was “distressed by Hidrock Realty’s plan – reported this morning in The Real Deal – to close our neighborhood movie theater, the Pavilion, for luxury housing.”

“My family has enjoyed countless movies there,” Lander continued, “and our kids have been able to walk there with their friends. Even in its somewhat-faded glory, the Pavilion is a part of growing up and being a family in Park Slope.”

In 2006, Hidrock’s Abraham Hidary said that the firm didn’t have any plans of turning the theater into a residential building. “There’s no merit to ever thinking that it might be a conversion,” he told the Park Slope Courier at the time.

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New plans call for nearly 46,000 square feet of residential space and 24 apartments. The building will also include roughly 8,000 square feet of commercial space.

Lander said Wednesday that “it is deeply disappointing that they appear to be going back on their word.”

The median sales price for homes in Park Slope between January 15 and April 15 was roughly $1 million, according to Trulia, which is almost 64 percent higher than the median sales price in the rest of the borough.

Hidrock, which earlier this month sold its controlling interest in a 16-story Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Herald Square in a deal that values the property at $132 million, also owns the adjacent, vacant property at 192 Prospect Park West, property records show.

“Despite numerous reports to the contrary, the movie theater operator has a lease through 2022, with two additional 10-year options,” Massey Knakal partner Brian Leary told the Park Slope newspaper in 2006. Leary, who helped broker the sale, added that the nine-screen theater attracts more than 500,000 admissions a year.

Morris Adjmi is serving as the architect of record for the new building, the application shows.