The Core Club is doubling down on the Big Apple boom in swanky member-only hideouts.
The exclusive club — which counts designer Kenneth Cole, Mets owner Steve Cohen and rocker Patty Smyth among its mix of power players — will allow an additional 3,500 members, doubling its current roster, when it reopens its lavish doors in a massive new space on Fifth Avenue next week.
One of the first wave of trendy private clubs to pop up in the city in the 21st century, the Core had closed its original clubhouse on East 55th St. last month.
“We outgrew our home,” Core Club founder Jennie Enterprise told Side Dish. “We maxed out on our membership a few years after we opened, and we are in the curation and engagement business — not in the transactional business of churning and burning members.”
The price to join ranges from $15,000 for an individual to $100,000 for a Founding membership, along with annual dues of $15,000 for an individual and $18,000 for a couple.
Enterprise, who launched the Core Club after 9/11, said the membership will grow over time and dismissed concerns that swelling the roster will eliminate the feel of exclusivity.
“With this move, we are effectively doubling our space and so we are able to develop our membership,” said Enterprise, who is planning to open outposts in San Francisco and Milan. “That effort, however, is not focused on achieving scale. It is a deeply considered and thoughtful process that continues to be focused on curating those unlike-minded individuals who are relentlessly curious and move through life as a journey of discovery.”
Core’s Big Apple expansion comes as a new batch of private clubs mushroomed across the city during the pandemic, including Aman, Casa Cipriani and Zero Bond.
London-founded Soho Club, which opened in the Meatpacking District in the early aughts, now has three New York City branches, with another coming to the Hudson Valley and more around the world.
Business seems to be booming for all the exclusive clubs despite many having hefty membership fees that can rise to six figures, industry insiders told Side Dish.
The explosion in private clubs, Enterprise said, reveals a need to escape the oversharing, all-seeing eyes of social media.
“I think there is a demand for more private communities and experiences since COVID,” Enterprise said. “Private clubs can also offer an escape and a veil of protection from social media, a place to go where you can do something somewhere that isn’t recorded or captured for public consumption.”
Many of the new private clubs, however, serve niche groups focused on elevated dining, nightlife or co-working space experiences, often based on hotel and restaurant brand expansion.
For example, in certain circles, Casa Cipriano is sometimes known as a place “with great food, and an older gentlemen, younger women vibe,” an insider told Side Dish.
Zero Bond is best known for coming alive at night, and being the celebrity hotspot where Mayor Eric Adams celebrated his election victory.
The Core Club is different, Enterprise insists, because it focuses on curating its members and experiences.
It’s “more professional” adds an insider, with a supercharged power lunch scene, and an equal number of male and female members.
Recent events at the old location before it shuttered included talks by biographer Walter Isaacson, fashion designer Thom Browne, makeup mogul Bobbi Brown and top chef Kwame Onwuachi.
“Our members are really excited to interact with people who are emerging agents of transformation and visionaries looking to learn from people who have changed the world already,” Enterprise said.
The Core’s new digs take up four fours 711 Fifth Ave. that cover 60,000 square feet and features a private restaurant, 6,000 square feet of outdoor space, a culinary lab to showcase globe-trotting guest chefs, a health and wellness center with a gym and a medical grade skincare spa, the dangene, named for Enterprise’s wife.
There’s also an art gallery, wine bar, juice bar, screening room and private dining rooms and meeting spaces along with 11 suites for overnight guests.
The office building housing the new Core already is a draw for a certain wealthy set who patronize Ralph Lauren’s popular, and pricey, Polo Bar, which has a separate entrance around the corner.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
