Press

That’s the future of real estate: experience-driven. What does it make you feel? Why are you there? It can't be purely for the transaction. It's the experience that makes you go back again.

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.

There’s an opportunity now to really rethink how people are using space, how people come and interact and why, and I think that's where [Skylight is] seeing this convergence of a venue being the new anchor of development.

To kick off New York Fashion Week, Bvlgari hosted a sparkling soirée across the Brooklyn Bridge at Skylight at The Refinery [...] Bvlgari’s deputy CEO, Laura Burdese, called the venue, founded the same year as the Roman jewelry house, a “one-of-a-kind location” for the skyline soirée. "Recently renovated and brought back to life, it carries a deep connection to the past that is projected into the future,” Burdese said of the historic Brooklyn location. “So what better place to tell a story of a technique that combines past, present and future, inviting contemporary artists to co-create and experiment by unleashing the brand’s deepest values: curiosity, creativity, experimentation and audacity.”

[Skylight] has already helped transform The Refinery at Domino and Moynihan Train Hall into go-to venues for significant moments in art and fashion. The venue development firm is in the business of urban archaeology, turning otherwise inaccessible landmarks into gathering spaces and anchor points of local communities. These metropolitan monuments—New York’s iconic Domino Sugar Refinery and the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Clock Tower among them—are transformed into event venues that act as sets for film shoots, fashion shows, and creative experiences that give access to architectural gems back to the public.

THE VIBE: If buildings were people then the freshly revived Domino Sugar Factory would undoubtedly be a 10. The dazzling giant of glass and brick is the shiniest new item on Williamsburg’s new Gold Coast, looming over the city’s east river development like a gleaming Fabergé egg. On Thursday night, it opened its alluring doors to play host to Audemars Piguet and Travis Scott’s hush-hush afterparty, despite still technically being closed due to heavy construction — a testament to the high levels of clout and power at play.

Spectacular venues have long been integral to New York Fashion Week, from the iconic tents at Bryant Park to insider access at secret spots each season. Over the years, Skylight itself has become synonymous with locations throughout the week.

Her firm, Skylight Studios, is some combination of historian, consensus-builder, urban anthropologist and glitzy, celebrity-studded event management firm. It works with some of the country’s biggest landlords and developers, including Vornado Realty Trust, Brookfield, L&L Holding and Atlas Capital Group, taking their unused or underused real estate and offering it up to brands and content studios for events, installations and immersive experiences.

Call it creative real estate. Skylight Studios has built a business finding distinctive but underused buildings in New York to serve as the backdrop for shows and marketing events for brands such as Nike and Ralph Lauren, and helping landlords gain exposure to their spaces.

Real estate is nothing without people. Even the most beautiful, historic spaces occasionally need a boost, and Stephanie Blake is the magician making that happen. As CEO of Skylight, she’s responsible for activating spaces ranging from New York’s Moynihan Station and St. John’s Terminal to San Francisco’s Ferry Building and Detroit’s Michigan Central Station. Blake has built a reputation working with governments, brands, and real estate developers to build a sense of place and activity in incredible and often unconventional spaces.

Skylight not only monetizes a developer’s dormant asset, it also allows people in, inviting them to have a unique experience, and maybe even to take a picture or two—preferably geotagged on Instagram. It’s the beginnings of a historic structure’s 21st-century identity… where the only constant is change.

Bleecker Street — specifically the quaint, five-block stretch in the West Village that until very recently was so pockmarked with empty storefronts that it was described as looking like “a Rust Belt city” — is alive and kicking, once again, with the help of the creative strategy firm Skylight.

Held at the cavernous and contemporary Skylight Essex Crossing, the gala welcomed guests like Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore, and Kate Young...

Skylight, a venue development firm known for its prolific cultural programming, brings its expertise to The Refinery’s penthouse space, transforming it into Brooklyn’s newest event venue. The penthouse hosted its inaugural event, the Hermès Menswear Runway Show during New York Fashion Week, signaling its potential as a sought-after cultural and event space.

VIPs and models walked along the perimeter of the top floor of the newly renovated Domino Sugar Refinery as the sunset glow peered in through the Manhattan skyline (the evening was aptly titled "Walking On Air"). It was the first event to take place at the former sugar factory [...] Afterward, guests were taken up to Skylight at The Refinery, the glass-enclosed dome of the top floor for cocktails and bites (and those stunning city views).

A penthouse dome called Skylight [at the Refinery] will offer space for gathering and gorgeous views.

Skylight Studios are masters of transforming purpose-built spaces into creative landscapes for film and TV studios. They don’t pursue the cliché locations that lack originality. Rather, Skylight prides itself on selecting sites that have been forgotten or abandoned, including power plants, warehouses, train stations, and more. By bringing new life to these venues, Skylight aims to build bonds with surrounding communities and create opportunities that benefit everyone.

On Friday night, lines formed outside of Skylight’s Forgotten Edge, a relatively unmarked warehouse space in downtown Los Angeles, for “Club Renaissance,” a two-night event in celebration of Renaissance, Beyoncé‘s seventh studio album.

In a queue that followed the natural curve of the Skylight at Essex Crossing building in Manhattan, beauty-obsessed New Yorkers braved the rain on Saturday in hopes of gaining entry into Sephoria: House of Beauty.

When Hermès presented its Autumn-Winter 2023 Men’s show “Walking on Air” last Thursday, September 14, the luxury French Maison took its own theme as literally as possible. Despite notable technological advances, we haven’t unlocked the ability to walk on air (yet), leaving Hermès no choice but to choose the next best thing –– Skylight at the Refinery.

Inside Skylight at Essex Crossing on Monday evening, LaQuan Smith hosted a power-packed runway show, where his twinkling designs met the eyes of an equally star-studded front row, filled by the likes of Saweetie, Laverne Cox, Mary J. Blige, Summer Walker and Offset.

[Skylight at the Armory]’s history, unique architectural character and size are a large part of its appeal ... It just needs ‘new uses’ like the event from Levi’s [which] shares Skylight’s ‘goals of revitalizing the city and highlighting the value of this unique space,' ultimately creating a genuine love letter to the city both brands call home.

[Levi's] is creating an immersive, open-to-the-public 501 Experience opening Friday at the [SF's] historic Skylight at the Armory venue in the Mission District.

This weekend, you’ll find them spread out over an enormous 30,000-square-foot space in Skylight at Essex Crossing. There are intricate, colorful rugs woven using techniques that date back to the 16th century, chairs made in the Carpathian mountains with sheep wool cushions, and handmade beeswax candles.

Covering 10,000 square feet in Skylight Essex’s just-opened Broome Street address, the showcase spotlights tech, art, crafts, fashion, cultural roots and photography.

The event is contained within an architectural concept by FORMA studio, housed at Skylight at Essex Crossing on Broome Street. It’s a two-floor space, with the entrance on the top floor yielding a bird’s eye view of what's being shown below.

Skylight Studios plans to revive the Financial District — one event at a time … Skylight Studios CEO Stephanie Blake speaks from experience when she says that events can transform underutilized neighborhoods.

At Spring/Break Art Show LA, also opening Feb. 15, that distinction means showing contemporary art by emerging and midcareer artists in unique, historic or underused architectural locations. Last year it occupied a former 1940s munitions factory in Culver City, where it will again be housed this year, a venue now known as Skylight Culver City.

This extra time proved beneficial for Ferrari, who was able to pause, contemplate, and develop his designs even further than previously anticipated. It also provided another fortuitous opportunity: to photograph them against the dramatic industrial backdrop of Skylight Steelworks, a former factory and 1960s office space on 750 acres outside of Toronto in the one-time steel town of Hamilton, which has recently become home to a new generation of creatives and artists. Skylight — which finds these kinds of unique real estate properties and transforms them into film and photography studios — turned the site into a sprawling shooting location (parts of The Handmaid’s Tale were filmed there).

Just 15 minutes away from the main fair, at Spring/Break Art Show’s third L.A. edition, things will get even more untraditional. Its [founders continue to source] “exhibition-atypical locales,” the latest of which is a 30,000 square foot former factory in Culver City that will play host to 50 immersive installations.

The fair continues its penchant for unique architectures, and equally creative engagements by the artists exhibiting there at a new home, Skylight Culver City, an expansive 30,000 square foot warehouse built in 1940. The former factory site is nestled in the Arts District of Culver City [provides] a continued assurance of ample space for the exploratory and inventive.

Brands and real estate developers alike are turning to firms like Skylight, a placemaking and venue development firm that combines adaptive reuse, redevelopment, and forecasting to transform traditional and struggling commercial spaces into immersive brand experiences.

Skylight created and ran a comprehensive programming calendar engaging the neighborhood residents and NYC locals, and fostered community amongst the merchants.

Today the shopping street has returned from the brink thanks to “Love, Bleecker”, an activation engineered by real estate strategy firm Skylight and Brookfield Properties

The Skylight team sees more value for brands in unique spaces that have a long history, approaching the owners of these spaces as advisors who can help create new value and relevance for an older area or building.

The [Stalls at Skylight ROW DTLA] organically achieved what many fairs fail to ever do: captivate audiences with something unexpected.

Prabal Gurung is teaming up with the experiential venue company Skylight on a light installation at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, projecting four pillars of white light into the sky to symbolize his ‘four freedoms’: freedom of speech, worship, want and fear.

New York is playing host to the Grammys for the first time in 15 years, and the city is celebrating the way it does best—a lot of parties. Spotify hosted a pre-Grammy soiree at Skylight Clarkson Sq and drew in its own eclectic selection of actors, influencers, models, and musicians.

The female-run creative strategy and venue development firm Skylight transformed the vacant courtyard adjacent to the theater into a dreamy indoor-outdoor escape for one night only and there was no shortage of ambience-setting extras.

The events reach audiences through images posted on social media, trendy blogs and sites such as Vogue and Architectural Digest that live on digitally long after the event is over. The creative uses of the space also help market the buildings.

IMG, the organizers of The Shows, commissioned Fulk to dream up spaces for resting, working, and hobnobbing between shows at Skylight Clarkson Sq, the hub of NYFW for the past few seasons. In typical Fulk fashion, the designer went all out.

Artists and designers from Thome Browne to Kanye West trust the gritty New-York-style aesthetic Skylight provides.

Having Skylight on your fashion show invitation became a status symbol for the coolest designers.

[Skylight's] rehabbed venues were the envogue spots for parties, galas, and runway shows for the likes of Nike, Google, Facebook, the Whitney Museum, Rag & Bone, and Proenza Schouler.

The decision to house the new men’s fashion week at Skylight Clarkson Sq is just one of many developments that have reinvigorated the Far West Village.

Skylight’s venues add permanence and meaning to an event many Americans still see as superficial. They make New York Fashion Week a culturally significant biannual occurrence.

Skylight looks for buildings whose raw interior allows for unlimited production options. [...] The new homes of fashion week – Moynihan Station and Clarkson Square – both have raw, empty interiors that have the ability to transform, limited only by the imaginations of designers who will show there.

We’re reintroducing the industry to the creative talent, style and innovation that made the New York runway famous. This involves staying close to inspirational hubs for fashion, art and music, and we’ve found a great new home for that in Skylight at Moynihan Station and Skylight Clarkson Sq.

[Skylight] oversee their renovation, memorize their ins and outs and century-old quirks, then find Fortune 500 companies and fashion designers to rent them out.

For us it’s buzz, publicity; the building is being talked about and tweeted about and pictures are being shown.

Andrew Levin, Senior VP, Boston Properties

Skylight focuses on the industries that make New York tick: fashion, art, culture, technology.

Skylight has created a platform that caters to high-end, culturally relevant companies in the fashion, technology, and media fields which is wholly consistent with the neighborhood essence and DNA of its residents.

Having Skylight Group in the building is a win-win for everyone.

Skylight venues push the envelope on the most important events New York City may ever hold.

These are New York’s leading event spaces.

[Skylight] has turned event spaces into one of NYCs great physical assets, taken ill-used spaces in marginal areas and drawn some of the world's top executives, models, celebrities and other creative types to locations most people wouldn't look twice at.

[Skylight] becomes part of the event process and will pitch in to get it done. They are extremely flexible and accommodating, necessary in a business with a frenetic and fantastic collision of creativity, personality, quality control and strict deadlines. They hire smart people who can think on their feet.

[Skylight] specializes in ‘taming’ historic spaces and giving them new life as character-laden event venues. The growing Skylight portfolio, which includes the new homes of New York Fashion Week, comprises spaces that are as beautiful as they as functional.