UPDATED, Sep. 8, 5:15 p.m.: That’s a wrap on condos at the Pavilion cinema in Park Slope. An investor group bought the building at 188 Prospect Park West for $28 million with investors. Matthew Viragh, the owner of Williamsburg’s Nitehawk cinema, will lease the property and open the second cinema-restaurant hybrid at the weathered venue, dashing the possibility of condos at the site.
Hidrock Properties [TRDataCustom] is the seller. The firm still owns the adjacent property, a vacant one-story building at 192 Prospect Park West.
In October 2015 Hidrock, which bought the cinema for $16 million in 2006, won landmarks approval to develop a six-story condo building on an adjoining lot and turn part of the current cinema into apartments. But the owners ultimately backed off those plans and decided to sell instead.
Hidrock’s Steven Hidary, a Brooklyn native, told the New York Times that the change of heart has nothing to do with concerns of luxury-apartment oversupply in the borough. “We had to decide, do we build condos or do we save Brooklyn?” he said. “So we saved Brooklyn.”
Viragh told the Times that he plans to spend $10 million on renovations, and that Nitehawk Prospect Park will open in the fall of 2017. The new cinema will have seven screens and 650 seats. [NYT] — Konrad Putzier