Jem Realty pays $22M for Alhambra Ballroom building

Times Square-based investment firm Jem Realty Management bought a seven-story office building on Adam C. Powell Jr. Boulevard in central Harlem for $21.5 million from Fort Lee, N.J., developer Mitchell Mekel, according to property records filed with the city today. 

The 58,000-square-foot property at 2108-2118 Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard near Olmstead Avenue last sold for $6 million in 2006, as The Real Deal reported.

Its ground floor is home to the Alhambra Ballroom event space, and formerly housed bowling alley Harlem Lanes and soul food restaurant Gospel Uptown. The Alhambra Ballroom was initially a vaudeville venue when built in 1905. The likes of jazz legend Billie Holliday and blues singer Bessie Smith performed at the theater.

Neither Alan Jemal of Jem Realty nor Mekel of Mitchell Enterprises could be immediately reached for comment.

The broker was undisclosed, though Jeffrey Brooker of Webb & Brooker handled the sale in 2006. Brooker, who died in at 2010, counted it among his greatest accomplishments during his more than 25-year tenure in the Harlem commercial market, a friend said at the time.

In November, Macy’s denied rumors that it was considering a store on 125th Street between Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue, at a site slated to be the new headquarters of the National Urban League, as previously reported.