Real Estate Harlem Tennis Program Plans $50M Expansion To Serve Thousands More With a vision for Manhattan’s first public indoor tennis facility, a Harlem nonprofit needs space and funding to bring its dream to life.
A rendering of HJTEP’s dream facility. (Meridian Design)
HARLEM, NY – The Harlem Junior Tennis & Education Program (HJTEP), a longstanding neighborhood nonprofit dedicated to building champions on and off the tennis court, is ready to expand.
“Our program is going to be 53 years young next year – we’ve been around since 1972 – and we are bursting at the seams at our current location,” said executive director and former tennis pro Katrina Adams. “We’re not looking to leave our current facility” – the Harlem Armory Center on West 143rd Street near Harlem River Drive – “but to expand outside of its walls. It’s going to take a lot of hard work and we’re going to have to raise a lot of money, but this facility would not only serve more youth in Harlem, it would serve kids from all over the city. Plus, we would also be able to serve an adult population. Tennis is one of the healthiest sports and our adults also need health and wellness opportunities.”
16 Courts The dream is ambitious: the first public indoor tennis facility in Manhattan – plus outdoor courts. Adams envisions 16 tennis courts – eight indoor and eight outdoor – in a building that could span an entire city block, along with classrooms, locker rooms, a cafeteria, community spaces, and administrative offices.
“It would be a self-sustaining public facility. We would be able to rent court time, run clinics and leagues, and to host our own events as well as events for others,” she explained. Currently serving over 800 children with a waitlist of 500, the new facility would increase capacity to approximately 2,500 students annually, according to Crain’s, which first reported on the expansion plan.
“We are putting kids in college year after year, from the Ivy Leagues to community colleges and everything in between,” Adams said. “I know there are hundreds of people, thousands of people out there who would want to support this initiative – and I don’t need that many people,” she added. A $50-$75M Raise To achieve its vision, HJTEP is exploring multiple real estate options, including purchasing property, a long-term lease, or a partnership with a developer or other entity. Finding suitable space in Harlem is no small task, and high property costs and limited availability mean the organization will need to remain flexible.
Arthur Mirante, a vice chairman at global real estate services firm Savills who is advising HJTEP, noted that a comprehensive request for proposals (RFP) is being finalized and will soon be distributed. “It’ll be widely broadcast, and that’ll be the document that we’ll use to tell the world what [we’re] looking for,” Mirante said. HJTEP is also preparing a capital campaign to fund the project, which will include selling naming rights for the facility. “This will probably be a $50 to $75 million raise, depending on the location,” Adams said. “I’m looking for 129,000 square feet, for a one-of-a-kind space. This will be a magnificent facility, and it’s a great opportunity for anybody who wants to put their name on a building or a court.” ‘Takes A Village’ Mirante likened HJTEP’s expansion to his previous work with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Over a decade ago Mirante helped Ailey realize a transformative vision for a new building, overcoming financial and logistical challenges to create a facility that became an institutional cornerstone.
“I was on the board for Alvin Ailey, and Judith [Jamison, the artistic director at the time] got up and said, ‘You guys gotta help me. Our dancers are changing their clothes in the hallway. We have no AC. You gotta get me a new building,’” Mirante recalled. “‘The new building will also help us raise money, it’ll give an institutional quality to the organization – a permanence – it’ll help with everything, and that’s my dream.’