In recent years, if you have attended runway shows for Ralph Lauren, Prabal Gurung or Edun, or been to parties for the Whitney Museum of American Art or Google product debuts, you've been to an event held with the Skylight Group.
The woman behind the company is Jennifer Blumin, who is equal parts developer, events planner and urban archaeologist, finding decrepit and underused real estate in New York, which she polishes into dazzling event spaces.
In 2004, she took over 18,000 square feet of abandoned space at Hudson and Spring Streets and transformed it into a clean, white-filled box. In 2012, at the post office building across from Penn Station on West 34th Street, Ms. Blumin took 70,000 feet of unused ground-floor space, removed the metal columns and catwalks, and rented it out to fashion designers, event planners and design fairs.
Her newest space is a former terminus for the old High Line railroad, near the West Side Highway and Houston Street, also known as Clarkson Square.
On a recent Thursday, Ms. Blumin offered a tour of the 70,000-square-foot space, though she barely knew where to turn. A crew for Ralph Lauren was already drilling away, erecting drywall and plastering over floors while constructing a space to show his Spring 2015 collection this week.
'They build rooms within rooms, hallways within hallways,' said Ms. Blumin, 37. 'I get lost.'
She ambled from one area with epoxy floors, 30-foot beams and white walls to another. Then she pointed up at the recessed ceilings where the train line once ran.
'I call this building my white whale because I was trying to get in for so long,' she said. 'But the previous owners kept stonewalling me.'
Ms. Blumin was referring obliquely to Eugene Grant, a real estate tycoon in his 90s who sold the mammoth building at 550 Washington Street (it stretches roughly three city blocks) to a private equity consortium in 2013.
After that, Ms. Blumin got her key to the place, bringing her to yet another industrial building in yet another industrial neighborhood.
As the chief executive of Skylight, her job involves taking raw spaces and renting them out to fashion brands, nonprofits and technology companies, who build movie-set-like environments inside for huge parties, charity galas or runway shows.
Eventually, a space like 550 Washington may be transformed by developers into something like a tech giant's next headquarters or the latest, greatest Whole Foods. But in the meantime, Ms. Blumin's company can make upward of $50,000 a day using it as an event space for clients like 3.1 Phillip Lim or Target. She pays no rent and has no ownership, splitting the check with the landlords, who also get publicity and foot traffic.
For the brands that hire her, particularly inside the fashion world, the space offers a chance to do something unique.
'The rawness is especially appealing,' said James LaForce, of the fashion public relations firm LaForce & Stevens, which held a party there Thursday night to celebrate Joseph Altuzarra's new line for Target. 'People want the new thing.'
Paul Wilmot, who owns a fashion public relations firm that hosts many fashion week events, added, 'During this time of renovation, she's like the squatter who makes money.'
Fifteen years ago, Ms. Blumin was a peon at Ketchum, the global public relations firm. 'It was soul-crushing work,' she said. 'I hated my life.'
Then, in 2001, she helped Jonathan Leitersdorf, a developer, convert his NoHo apartment into a locale for photo shoots and corporate events. Soon, Gisele Bündchen was standing by the pool on Mr. Leitersdorf's roof wearing a Victoria's Secret G-string while a photographer snapped away and a cash register in Ms. Blumin's brain went 'ka-ching, ka-ching.'
With a sizable stake in the business, Ms. Blumin earned enough money to buy three apartments in SoHo, which she renovated and flipped. Then she used the profits to finance her own expansion.
Skylight SoHo opened in September 2004 and drew clients like Mr. Lauren, and Nike, who appreciated having a blank canvas to draw on as they staged increasingly high-profile events.
More Skylight locations followed in the 30s near the West Side Highway and at an old Art-Deco bank in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. In 2011, Ms. Blumin won a two-year contract consulting on the Highline's events business. In 2012, she opened the venue at the post office, followed by another smaller location at 537 West 27th Street.
Around 3 p.m., back at her latest space, she finished her tour and walked to the original Skylight Studios on Hudson Street. All that remained of the space, which closed in 2012, was a hole in the ground and a mock-up of the luxury high-rise that will soon be built in its place.
'It's going to be a monstrosity,' she said. 'But I can't compete with the Related Companies.'
Ms. Blumin continued south past Canal Street, toward the home she shares with her boyfriend, the architect James Ramsey, and their two small children.
Occasionally, Ms. Blumin hears that a real estate correction is going to come; that fashion shows will shrink again and become more intimate. She doesn't buy it.
'With the decline of print, more money is being put into events,' she said. 'It didn't even change during an economic downturn. For these bigger companies, what's $100,000, $200,000, $300,000?'
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