New York's SoHo district. San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood. Portland's Pearl District. These jewels of the American urban landscape currently sport trendy boutiques, five-star restaurants, and desirable (and expensive) condos. But before they were "hot," these areas were for decades low-income residential neighborhoods and warehouse districts. Their faded obscurity and affordable rents attracted painters, writers, musicians, and craftsmen.
The creative ambience that led to the gentrification of these districts demonstrates how the presence of artists can help transform and revitalize a neighborhood. Sadly, once that transformation takes place, those same artists are often priced out of the very places they helped make fashionable.
That's where Artspace comes in. A national nonprofit organization, Artspace creates and preserves affordable live/work space for artists and arts organizations, arranging for low mortgages that translate into low rents, which helps keep the tenants self-sufficient and the buildings sustainable. Through these efforts, Artspace enhances the cultural and economic vitality of surrounding communities.
In Seattle, where a real estate boom sent rents in the artist-friendly districts of Belltown, Capitol Hill, and Pioneer Square into the stratosphere, artists were increasingly forced to relocate to more affordable areas outside of the city. Artspace's Hiawatha Artist Lofts project in the Jackson Place neighborhood addresses that loss, following on the heels of the organization's first Seattle project, the successful Tashiro Kaplan Artist Lofts (TK Lofts) in the Pioneer Square Historic District.
Unlike the TK Lofts project, which renovated a charming vintage building and added three new floors of housing, the Hiawatha project is all-new construction, built on a site in the Central District where the Chinatown-International District meets the north end of Rainier Valley. The four-story building features high ceilings, large windows, and durable work surfaces. A large community and exhibition space provides a meeting place for the residents as well as a place to share creatively with the community at large. There is an exterior courtyard for residents, indoor parking, and 5,000 square feet of commercial space for retail and arts-related businesses.
The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation contributed $400,000 to the Hiawatha project and $250,000 to the Tashiro Kaplan project because the two projects strongly advance the Foundation's goal of creating a robust arts community in which artists have access to basic live/work housing, working facilities, and training and professional development opportunities.
Cathryn Vandenbrink, regional director of Artspace Seattle, said, "After word of Artspace's second Seattle project became known, we received an average of three requests a day for applications. This project added to the affordable housing stock for artists and their families who often work two or three part-time jobs to support their work in the creative arts."
Web site: www.artspaceusa.org
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The 61 units of the Hiawatha are limited to artists whose incomes are 40, 50 and 60 percent of the area median income—providing a stable, affordable and supportive environment in which to live and work.
Photo credit: Cathryn Vandenbrink
Courtesy of Artspace Projects
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