The Boston Globe
Artists get a place to live, work in city
By Alan R. Earls, Globe Correspondent | June 10, 2006
Five years after Mayor Thomas M. Menino began an effort to carve out parts of the city for artists to work and live in, one of the largest such projects is about to open in the South End.
ArtBlock, which comprises the renovation of a city school and two new buildings, will feature artists' work studios, 26 affordable live-in work lofts, an exhibition gallery, and 28 market-rate townhomes and lofts.
The development centers around the former Joshua Bates School at Harrison Avenue and East Newton Street. The seeds of the ArtBlock were sown about 20 years ago, when a group of artists leased the surplus school from the city for use as a work space.
Then, when city officials started working on Menino's initiative, ``they realized they had the kernel of an arts community already in place," said Peter Roth, president of New Atlantic Development and the builder of ArtBlock.
Menino views artists as a key element in neighborhood development and vitality. Heidi Burbidge, senior project manager with the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said artists have been on the leading edge of revitalizing neighborhoods including the South End and Fort Point Channel.
Work spaces and galleries are often followed by performance spaces and retail activity and a more active street life, which can discourage crime and encourage further investment .
That, however, often leads to gentrification, and the very artists who helped make a neighborhood desirable can no longer afford to live in it.
Indeed, a survey of nearly 10,000 artists by Menino's administration in 2002 revealed that just under half the respondents earned between $35,000 and $85,000 per year, making it difficult for many to afford rents or home prices in neighborhoods such as the South End.
The results helped shape Menino's artist agenda. The BRA worked with members of the community on redeveloping the unbuilt portions of the Bates site in a way that would help the artists. For example, Roth said the proceeds received by the BRA from the project are to be reinvested by the city to help support an artist's cooperative that will operate the gallery.
Public support -- including city-owned land and financial support -- were instrumental in creating such a large project.
``The cost of locating in the South End is less and less affordable for working artists so it was a great site to allow artists to be in the center of a city neighborhood," said Burbidge.
Claudia Ravaschiere, president of the Fort Point Arts Community, Inc., values the ArtBlock project ``because artists are being displaced all the time so any project that brings some stability is of value."
Indeed, when the city started the artist-space initiative, officials counted fewer than 300 permanent artist's studios in the city. So far, using design guidelines and deed restrictions, the city has added 151, Burbidge said, including the ArtBlock units. Another 100 are in the works.
``The mayor would like to have space for every artist who needs it," Burbidge said. ``We are trying to gauge the need so we can match sites to their ability to pay."
Other projects available or in the pipeline include the Dartmouth Hotel in Dudley Square and the Midway Studios in the Fort Point area.
In the ArtBlock project, the city requested proposals for redevelopment of the Bates site and two adjacent parcels in May 2003 and New Atlantic Development won the designation in November of that year. The firm, which has done similar artist and urban developments in Boston and Roxbury, proposed to provide both market-rate and below-market units. Roth, its founder, is the current chair of the Boston Preservation Alliance.
The school building has been refurbished and will continue to host the artists' work spaces. The new five-story buildings , ArtBlock East and ArtBlock West, are scheduled to open this year. The east building has four duplex town house condos, 23 loft condos, the gallery, and 31 underground parking spaces. The west building will have 6 duplex town houses, 21 lofts, and 28 parking spaces.
The affordable units range from 950 to 1,200 square feet, will be priced from $179,000 to $199,000, and will be available to artists designated under a peer-based BRA certification process. The market rate units are available to anyone; they will range from 800 to 1,500 square feet and range in price from $425,000 and $810,000
