It may be the greatest conceptual art project ever. Early next year some 89 artists hope to move into three contiguous newly rehabilitated warehouse buildings off A Street they hope will be the nucleus of an arts oriented neighborhood in the Fort Point District, a project they have created all by themselves. It is a far cry from the outlook less than five years ago when these very same artists saw real estate developers rushing to turn the warehouses into dot come meccas, development that would slowly force them out of the neighborhood that has been their home for almost twenty five years.
When the dot com craze was at its height in 1999, the artists living in the virtually isolated Fort Point District sensed trouble. The dilapidated brick post and beam warehouse buildings all around them were about to be engulfed by hi tech companies. Their existence as an artists community was threatened with extinction. They tried in a desperate attempt to preserve their community to buy some of the buildings, but found out to their dismay they had been sold to a developer. It looked as though the end was near fo the Fort Point artists community.
But within two years the bottom had fallen out of the hi tech industry and suddenly what had been a threat to the artists’ existence became an opportunity. The real estate firms no longer had a market for hi tech space but they needed to do something with the buildings. Located in a isolated area of empty warehouses and facing Gillette’s industrial landscape the warehouse setting that was so attractive to the young and crazy dot com creators with money to burn was not as attractive as a setting for high end condos.
So a group of artists in Fort Point formed the Fort Point Cultural Coalition a non profit corporation and set out to see what they could do to preserve their home. In April 2003 the Fort Point Artists Coalition formed The Fort Point Development Collaborative (FPDC) a joint venture of the Fort Point Cultural Coalition, Inc. and Keen DevelopmentCorporation which will foster the creation of the arts by developing permanent, affordable artist live/work space and cultural facilities in Boston's Fort Point neighborhood.
"We want to make sure that the artists who built this neighborhood in Fort Point had a future in this neighborhood," said Anita Lauricella, one of the founders of the Fort Point Development Collaborative.
Working with Keen, the artists struck a deal with Beacon Capital who had purchased the buildings from Boston Wharf and undertook the renovation of three former warehouses. When completed early next year, the 205,000-square foot project in three contiguous buildings will hold 89 artist live/work studios, ranging in size from approximately 920 square feet to approximately 2,300 square feet, a 200 seat theater with a two story high steel truss supported ceiling, a smaller theater that can be used for rehearsal space or other activities, a café and office space for the arts organization, the first development of its kind in Boston.
In return for giving the group a ninety nine year ground lease for the three buildings, Beacon in return gets an arts oriented anchor for its Channel Center project and 12 affordable housing units to fulfill its obligations for the project, along with a forty four car parking garage.
The bulk of the financing which made this project a reality is being provided by MassDevelopment who issued $15.155 million in tax exempt, multi-family housing revenue bonds, with Fleet National Bank and Citizens Bank of Massachusetts each contributing $1.625 million in loans, as well as providing letters of credit to underwrite the bonds. The Historic Communities Fund will also become an equity investor in the project, providing an additional $4 million in financing. Fort Point Development Corp has the right to buy out the ground lease upon completion and occupancy.
"This financing marks a watershed in the effort to preserve affordable living and working space for artists, who were the real pioneers of the Fort Point neighborhood but who are increasingly being displaced by high rents and new development. There are still challenges ahead, but this is a major step forward and gives us hope for the future," stated Lauricella.
So sometime next year the artists will move in, the theater and café will open and what was once a group of abandoned warehouses will become the beginning of a twenty four hour artistic neighborhood where artists live, work and perform. The artists will have a huge building to call their own and the entire Fort Point district will have the beginnings of a neighborhood that will be flexible enough to accommodate a lively nighttime scene of cafes and entertainment. It may be the ultimate artistic concept. The artists may have created their best masterpiece and be living in it all at once.
The Boston Harbor Journal