Rendering from Stillman Development International
Applying the team’s historic preservation and restoration expertise along with its adaptive reuse experience, Shawmut will collaborate with Stillman Development International and Beyer Blinder Belle on The Times Square Theater's redevelopment, transforming the closed-down space into a retail center while maintaining the building’s authenticity and restoring its historic architecture.
Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal
The Times Square Theater on West 42nd Street has been closed for nearly three decades, detached from the transformation of the blighted area into a tourist destination with Hershey’s Chocolate World, an Old Navy clothing store and the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Now, a New York developer is reviving it. Stillman Development International LLC, which last year signed a lease for up to 73 years, is planning to restore the theater’s historic architecture, combine it with fresh design and lease the entire property to retailers.
Stillman is betting that the former theater’s high ceilings, views of the Times Square neighborhood and large outdoor space will appeal to brands that want a store that can double as an attraction and lure online shoppers from their couches.
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The developer hired Beyer Blinder Belle, an architecture and design firm with an expertise in historic preservation. Its plan involves lifting the theater’s limestone facade by 5 feet to create higher ceilings on the ground floor. The colonnade on the second floor will be encased in glass to overlook 42nd street. Stillman is also adding a glass box of two additional floors and outdoor space.
It said it would also restore the large, decorated plaster proscenium arch that once framed the stage, the opera boxes flanking the arch as well as a 35-foot diameter dome, moving these features to the upper floors.