Speaking of the need for arts-related CDCs to buy, hold, and operate arts facilities: Seattle and BTMFBA | The Inscape Arts building

Inscape Arts’ studios are in a building that was once an Immigration and Naturalization Service building and had bars on its windows. It’s for sale, and the future of the artist studios is unknown. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)

Seattle Times reports, "Seattle artists fundraise to buy former INS building, now home to 100-plus studios."

I got interested in arts and culture planning in the face of multiple arts organization failures in DC and the DC area, c. 2003

--  "Cultural resources planning in DC: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" (this piece is from 2007)

In 2009, I presented at the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas national conference on cultural master planning initiated by arts disciplines as opposed to city and county government, with a special focus facilities planning:

-- "Arts, culture districts, and revitalization"

But I failed to make the point that city/county-wide initiatives ought to be in place, through an arts-based community development corporation, to deal with this, and I updated the 2009 piece:

-- "Reprinting with a slight update, "Arts, culture districts and revitalization"" 2019

(Note that I realized this omission in a conversation at an Airbnb I was staying at in Hackney Wick, London, in association with my trip to Liverpool in 2018, which was funded in part by great blogreaders.  THANK YOU.)

BTMFBA: Buy the mother f*ing building already.  Separately, I now call this set of writings BTMFBA, or "Buy the mother f*ing building already."  Instead of plaintively complain about the displacement of arts uses and the loss of facilities, do something about it.

-- "BTMFBA: the best way to ward off artist or retail displacement is to buy the building," 2016
-- "When BTMFBA isn't enough: keeping civic assets public through cy pres review," 2016
-- "BMFBTA revisited: nonprofits and facilities planning and acquisition," 2016
-- "BTMFBA: artists and Los Angeles," 2017
-- "BTMFBA Chronicles: Seattle coffee shop raises money to buy its building," 2018
-- "Dateline Los Angeles: BTMFBA & Transformational Projects Action Planning & arts-related community development corporation as an implementation mechanism to own property," 2018
-- "The SEMAEST Vital Quartier program remains the best model for helping independent retail," 2018
-- "BTMFBA: San Francisco's The Lab and the Mission Economic Development Agency are trying to do the smart thing," 2019
-- "A wrinkle on BTMFBA: let the city/county own the cultural facility, while you operate it (San Francisco and the Fillmore Heritage Center)," 2021

The Paris SEMAEST CDC is probably the global number one best practice example.

Seattle has a couple of initiatives that own and/or operate multiple historic theater buildings on a nonprofit basis.  

-- "Seattle preservation: Pike Place Market, Neptune Theater, and the Cinerama," 2021

And according to the article, the artists at the Inscape Arts building are working with the Cultural Space Agency,

"a new public development authority chartered by the city of Seattle in 2020 to develop cultural spaces. Matthew Richter, the Cultural Space Agency’s interim executive director, said he has spoken with multiple interested investors but has not received any financial commitments yet."

So it seems like they have the theoretical capacity, to take this to the next level, and create a cross-disciplinary initiative to buy, hold, develop, and operate cultural space.

But it doesn't seem as if the Cultural Space Agency has been charged and funded ("Seattle’s mayor approves new agency dedicated to developing cultural spaces," ST) in a manner comparable to SEMAEST ("Paris City Hall wants to revive Semaest,"Les Echos ), where it is active and proactive, as opposed to a facilitator, a seeker of investors and other stakeholders to do the job themselves, with no guarantee of positive outcomes.

Hewitt & Jordan, "Economic Function." 2004, Billboard at Arch and Coronation Streets, Sheffield, UK.  Flickr photo link with additional text and links.

I'd say creating a "public development authority" with almost zero money is an example of elected and appointed officials not understanding how real estate development works, especially for arts uses which generally are unable to compete straight up in the real estate market, against other uses that are profitable.  

When you're dealing with real estate, plaintive appeals usually go for nought.

BTMFBA.  And create the right kinds of implementing organizations to be able to do so.