A small film center could rise in the heart of West Chelsea’s nightclub district, as the new owners of 530 West 27th Street, Centaur Properties, consider remaking their newly bought red-brick building near the High Line.
The building was, until a few months ago, home to two large nightclubs, Spirit and B.E.D., where a 35-year-old man died after falling down an elevator shaft amid what police claimed was a scuffle with Granville Adams, an actor on the HBO series Oz.
Centaur, which bought the building for $29.4 million late last year, sees the nightclub fad as short-lived as neighborhood opposition rises. Instead, it envisions the area thriving with an artistic niche, even as the West Side rail yards develop to the north.
“It’s going to be a pedestrian art district south of this massive new development that’s going to go on there,” a principal at Centaur, Harlan Berger, said. “In the short term, the film use or the art use are really two naturals for us.”
While the firm is still weighing other options for the space, such as a hotel, Mr. Berger said he is strongly considering the prospect of a multiuse center for the film industry, complete with screening rooms and a theater.
