Standing by a South Boston construction site, Mayor Thomas M.
Menino yesterday quoted Pablo Picasso, as the Fort Point Cultural
Collaborative announced plans for Midway Studios, a 200,000-square-foot
development that will house 89 new artists' live/work studios,
a gallery, a black box theater, and other cultural facilities in
Boston's Fort Point neighborhood.
''Everything you can imagine is real,'' the mayor said to a crowd
of approximately 250 who gathered outside the three contiguous
former warehouses near A Street that will be Midway Studios. The
group included spike-haired artists, dark-suited developers, and
city employees dressed in their summer casual best.
''This will be a little bit of heaven for the arts and for artists
in Fort Point -- a neighborhood that they helped to create several
years ago,'' Menino added.
The upbeat announcement came only days after news that the Boston
Wharf Co., the Fort Point neighborhood's major property owner,
intends to sell 44 of its buildings there to New York-based Tishman
Speyer Properties. Some 250 artists rent space from Boston Wharf.
News of the sale has added some trepidation to a neighborhood that
saw property values escalate dramatically during the 1990s and
artists all too frequently forced out. An estimated 600 artists
lived and worked in Fort Point in the early 1990s. The number has
dropped to approximately 400 today.
''This ensures that artists will always be part of this neighborhood,''
said Menino. ''Because we all know this area near the waterfront
is on the verge of a boom. With Midway Studios, artists are sure
to be a part of it all.''
Assembled by the Fort Point Development Collaborative, a joint
venture of the Fort Point Cultural Coalition and Keen Development
Corporation, Midway Studios is part and parcel of Channel Center,
a four-block residential, office, and retail complex that is being
developed in three phases by Beacon Capital Partners.
Beacon purchased 19 brick buildings and abutting property near
A Street from Boston Wharf in 2000, the twilight of a red-hot real
estate era in which developers, dot-com companies, and condo buyers
snapped up large swaths of property in the neighborhood.
At the time, an estimated 500 artists who lived and worked in
the neighborhood were in danger of losing their studios and homes,
according to the Fort Point Cultural Coalition, a group of artists
and arts group representatives working to prevent displacement
and develop affordable artists' housing.
Coalition members feared then that Beacon would ignore or marginalize
their interests in the neighborhood, according to Anita Lauricella,
a coalition member and cofounder of the Fort Point Development
Collaborative.
As it happened, she said, ''Beacon turned out to be a terrific
partner.'' Boston Redevelopment Authority director Mark Maloney
brought representatives of Beacon and the coalition to the table
at the mayor's behest, seeking ways to maintain artists' presence
as the neighborhood developed, said Lauricella.
The family-owned, Boston-based company, developers of Rowes Wharf
and One Post Office Square, sold three buildings to the coalition
for $1 apiece with the understanding that the group would develop
the property as a mixed-use cultural facility.
''This neighborhood was revived by artists,'' Beacon chairman
and CEO Alan Leventhal said at the Midway Studios kickoff yesterday.
''And for once those artists will be staying and working here.
This is simply the start of an emerging, exciting community.''
Leventhal and Lauricella both noted that plans for Midway Studios
and Channel Center have taken shape in a challenging economic environment.
''This wouldn't have happened in a boom economy,'' Lauricella
said. When the real estate market collapsed, for example, her organization
was able to secure low-interest loans to develop, she said.
The price tag for developing Midway Studios is approximately $23
million. Fleet Community Investment Group's real estate division
has underwritten $9.35 million of the $18 million the organization
intends to borrow through tax-exempt bonds. Federal tax credits
will cover another $4 million.
Lauricella said that 39 of the 89 artists' studios will be ''affordable,''
though the price on the units has yet to be set.
Construction is expected to start in September,
Meanwhile, said Lauricella and Jane Deutsch of the Fort Point
Artists Coalition, no one knows what's going to happen once Tishman
Speyer takes title to its Boston properties.
Maureen Dezell can be reached at dezell@globe.com.
This story ran on page D15 of the Boston Globe on 7/18/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
