A British theater magnate has acquired a long-term lease to a onetime playhouse in Times Square and has begun refurbishing it as Broadway’s next stage.

The Hudson, owned by Millennium Hotels and Resorts and used in recent years for meetings and events, will become the 41st Broadway theater, joining the nation’s most prestigious and lucrative dramatic marketplace.

The project is being led by Howard Panter, the co-chief executive of the Ambassador Theater Group, which is the largest owner of theaters in Britain and also a prolific producer of musicals and plays on both sides of the Atlantic. The privately held company has been expanding in the United States, citing the size of this country’s talent pool and of its theatergoing audience. Ambassador already runs six American theaters, two each in Louisiana and Texas, one in Brooklyn (the Kings) and one on Broadway (the Lyric, which, as one of the largest Broadway theaters, usually houses musicals).