Getting Real About Real Estate: The State of Broadway's Plans for Expansion

There may be a broken heart for every light on Broadway, but there certainly isn't a house for every show.

As Broadway sales continue to surge to new heights, demand has increased exponentially for a the extremely limited space that 41 theaters comprising Broadway can provide. With production costs soaring, that number grows even smaller as longer and longer runs become necessary in order to make a show profitable.

In recent years, Broadway has seen a tremendous uptick in the plans to expand its reach, with theater owners scooping up abandoned properties and attempting to lay ground for new ones.

"We've got backups and backups and backups of shows waiting for a theater," James L. Nederlander, president of the Nederlander Organization, tells Newsline.

Currently, there are more Broadway-ready shows waiting for theaters than any other time in history, With money to be made and exciting new works waiting to get off the ground, the gatekeepers of Broadway have begun an aggressive campaign to expand their resources. In the past several years, plans have been put in place, to varying degrees of success, to expand Broadway's purview and to capitalize on the tremendous returns of the past decade.

In 2016, Broadway celebrated the grand re-opening of the Hudson Theater with a star-studded production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George. The theater, leased by up and coming Broadway power players, The Ambassador Theatre Group, is Broadway's newest (and oldest) theater. It underwent extensive refurbishments- at an estimated cost of $10 million- following its years out of service, with upgrades including state-of-the-art seating, expanded women's washrooms and dressing rooms, and significant technical upgrades. Adding 985 new seats for Broadway audiences, the theatre currently home to a thrilling stage version of George Orwell's 1984.

Another viable option to expand Broadway operations in the tradition of the Hudson refurbishment would be the Times Square Theater, which operated as a Broadway house for more than sixty years and has been in real estate purgatory since the early 1990's. Coming into the ownership of the New 42nd Street group in 1992, the space was not immediately selected for restoration due to the fact that it lacked an 42nd Street loading dock, which hindered load-in of scenery and technical equipment.

After being considered for a series of commercial projects over the years, the space was looked at by multiple theater owners and producers who have thus far deemed the property to not be viable as a commercial Broadway theater in this day and age. Currently, there are no known plans for development.

In what is perhaps Broadway's most frustrating case of theatrical real estate, the Mark Hellinger Theater remains the most elusive of all the lost Broadway houses. Sold to the Times Square Church in 1988 for $17 million during a slump in sales and shows, many big names in the theatre industry such as British producer Cameron Mackintosh, the Shubert Organization, Disney, and Clear Channel have made attempts to buy the magnificent space back, to no avail.

With space scarcity as the main problem, the Shubert Organization made plans to stem the issue by building a brand-new theater on 45th Street beside the Imperial Theater. Despite excitement surrounding the project, last month it was announced that The Shuberts would no longer pursue construction, citing insurmountable complications integrating the space into a commercial real estate venture planned for the property.

"It was more the complexity of the development, which is in part a cost factor, but it was also just getting too difficult to incorporate the theater into the new building in a way that made it economically feasible," Robert E. Wankel, president of the Shubert Organization, told Variety. "It was an opportunity, but we just didn't think, in the end, it would work, much as we tried."

While Broadway remains in need of additional physical space, some new real estate developments have ensured an expansion of the artistic avenues on the Great White Way, with off-Broadway's Second Stage snapping up the Helen Hayes Theater. Vowing to use the space to promote American contemporary playwrights, their upcoming season heralds female and minority playwrights, ensuring that the Second Stage era of the Hayes will bring us many exciting new works by diverse theatrical leaders of tomorrow.

In the meantime, we will simply have to figure out where to put them.