Pennsylvania Ballet stepping toward new home on North Broad Street

It's almost two miles up Broad Street from Washington Avenue to Callowhill Street.

But for the Pennsylvania Ballet, the northward trek has been a journey of unimaginable transformation.

Two decades ago, the ballet company almost went out of business. It was drowning in debt and could no longer afford to keep its building at Broad and Washington, or maintain its own school.

Tuesday, it plans to break ground at 321 N. Broad St. for a $17.5 million project that will feature five dance studios, offices, and facilities for a soon-to-return School of the Pennsylvania Ballet.

The organization has raised $11.2 million for the first phase of the project. Most was contributed by donors; it will pay for the demolition of an existing building and renovation of a former garage for Brink's trucks into four dance studios.

Coming later will be a fifth studio, as large as the Academy of Music's stage, plus the renovation of a former halfway house for ex-offenders into office space.

"It's a powerful statement that we have $11 million in hand for this project," said Michael Scolamiero, executive director of the ballet. "There are a lot of people - not only in government, but individuals and foundations - who see this as an important project."

The city kicked in $1 million from its Cultural Corridors Fund, with the state contributing $2.5 million through the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program. Scolamiero said the ballet expected to raise an additional $6 million for the building through its ongoing capital campaign.

The ballet company's decision to locate at Broad and Wood Streets, just below Callowhill, extends the Avenue of the Arts' vibrancy northward.

"It elevates what we always wanted for North Broad Street," said City Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, who is also a board member of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

With the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Freedom Theatre on North Broad, the Pennsylvania Ballet will provide another anchor for the Avenue of the Arts, she said.

The project also marks a milestone for the company by allowing it to bring back a dance school.

The School of the Pennsylvania Ballet opened in 1962, but during the depths of the company's financial troubles in 1992, it was spun off into a stand-alone nonprofit.

Now known as the Rock School of Dance Education, the school also took over the ballet company's former headquarters at Broad and Washington.

The Pennsylvania Ballet used the Rock School's studios until 2007, when the groups parted ways and the company moved to leased dance space in East Falls.

"We are literally the only major ballet company in the country without a school where we have artistic control," Scolamiero said.

Other major ballet companies in such cities as New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Miami, Houston, San Francisco, and Seattle have affiliated schools that draw students from around the country.

Roy Kaiser, the ballet company's artistic director, said the School of the Pennsylvania Ballet would become "the lifeblood" of the company and "create dancers ready to jump right in and begin professional careers with us."

The school will come under the direction of former Pennsylvania Ballet principal dancer William DeGregory.

Set to open in September 2012, the school expects to open a satellite branch in the suburbs within a year afterward. No site has been selected, but the company is thinking about locations in the "lower to middle Main Line," Scolamiero said.

The new ballet headquarters - to be called the Louise Reed Center for Dance, after philanthropists Louise and Alan Reed - will accommodate the company's 40 professional dancers, plus more than 200 students.

Scolamiero said the ballet had thought about returning to a South Broad Street address. But it selected a location on the northern end of the Avenue of the Arts because of both the availability of more affordable land and the convenience of getting there for future students.

He said the proximity to public transportation and the Vine Street Expressway was a major attraction of the site. "The nice thing is Broad Street is really developing," Scolamiero said. "We feel there's a bright future for North Broad."

Now in its 48th season, the Pennsylvania Ballet had a surplus of $125,000 on revenue of $10.5 million for the year ended July 31. In December, it will take its production of The Nutcracker, spruced up with new sets and costumes four years ago, to Canada's National Arts Center in Ottawa.

"The company is dancing at an incredibly high level and is back again in the national spotlight," Scolamiero said. "It deserves a home."