Commercial real estate developer Ben Ashkenazy of Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation might convert the former RKO Hamilton Theater in Harlem into condominiums.
Community Board 9 and Harlem historian Michael Henry Adams advised that Ashkenazy build units on top of the theater, in an effort to finance the preservation of the interior. Ashkenazy had been proposing erecting a connector between the two-building theater site on West 146th Street.
In 2012, Ashkenazy paid $19 million for a portfolio of sites, including the theater, an adjacent three-story retail building occupied by an El Mundo department store, and a vacant parcel next to the theater. The parcel can accommodate up to 20,000 square feet of development. [DNAinfo] — Mark Maurer