“You get a building, and then you buy it, and then you get an endowment, and then the heavens open and the angels sing,” said Clara Miller, president and chief executive of the national Nonprofit Finance Fund. “And at each one of those steps up that ladder to heaven you’re actually becoming less flexible. You’re building more of a kind of organizational shell around yourself  which you may need, which may be the right kind of cradle for your mission. But you may be really undermining your flexibility to change with the times.”

Image Bear Crown, a recent production at Dance Theater Workshop, which moved into its current home in 2002. Credit... Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

Dance institutions have struggled to adapt to dwindling endowments and shrinking philanthropy. Squeezed between uncertain revenue streams and high fixed costs, organizations like Dance Theater Workshop, Dance New Amsterdam and 3LD Art & Technology Center find themselves beyond their means. Leaders of nonprofit groups say the economy has only worsened problems in an arts sector that is as overbuilt as the housing sector.

The cherished American belief that ownership guarantees security has been cruelly disproven for many, arts organizations as well as individuals, who bit off more than they could chew. The situation is acute in New York’s cutthroat real estate market, especially for an impoverished, space-hungry field like dance. Eviction stories are legion, so it’s no surprise that institutions are drawn to acquiring their own space. And the involvement of many parties  the city, donors, foundations, architects and the organizations themselves  can affect the scale of a project.

“Especially in New York City the capital process drives people into this artificial growth spurt,” said Brian Rogers, director of operations for Dance Theater Workshop and the co-founder, with Sheila Lewandowski, of the Chocolate Factory, a multidisciplinary theater in Long Island City, Queens. “And when the city gets involved in the capital process, it becomes much more expensive than it has to be. There’s not enough people in the process saying, ‘No, let’s do this simpler.’ ”