The founding of ’57 Biscayne and the subsequent history of our building figure prominently in this feature article about how artists (and some allies) are carving out space for ourselves to keep making art in our city as it grows. Biscaynito Clare Johnson weighs in on what having this space has meant to her work and career. Read it here.
Join us Thursday, December 1, 5:00-8:00 for the return of our Holiday Art Market. Shop local for handmade jewelry, ceramics, paintings, prints, cards and photographs – almost all made on site or at least locally. Visitors can glimpse the creative process, perusing the studios of resident artists.
A selection of guest artists will fill the building’s common spaces with additional creative wares:
While you’re in the neighborhood, check out the rest of the First Thursday Art Walk and other festive activities in Pioneer Square.
We’re turning ELEVEN! And we’re having a PARTY!
Our first full-scale event since the before-time, Turn it Up to Eleven!, will happen on First Thursday, October 6, 5-9 PM. The artists who work here will open up their studios, and we’re planning a big show for the halls featuring the many outstanding artists who have been a part of this community one way or another over the years.
And MUSIC! Yay! T.O.P. trio will play olde-timey prohibition-era tunes for us in the lobby.
At the same time we’re also celebrating the entire building’s new partnership with Historic Seattle, so there will be other surprises scattered about our rambling home, like a chance to see the new basement performance venue (featured in Crosscut).
Looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Mark the calendar.
Pioneer Square Artwalk is the oldest in the nation, and accessible by many forms of transportation. If you choose to do the car thing, scroll down to the blogroll on the right sidebar for free parking information.
This studio has been rented. To receive notices about future openings, please sign up for our mailing list.
Studio 311 is available August 1. A former corporate kitchenette, this 175-square-foot space has a sink and loads of cupboards. The current kitchen sink could be replaced by something more industrial (and may be required, depending on your medium). This is an interior space, but light filters in through the glass door, and there are lovely spacious common areas in which to take breaks, including one with a gorgeous skylight. The building has working heat/AC. $475/month includes utilities, as well as wifi, and use of shared kitchenette, bathroom, lobby, and display spaces. All studios are work-only, 24/7 access.
Leases are one year with a month-to-month default option after that.
The members of this community are serious about their art, professional, and supportive of other artists. We welcome all peoples and genders, and naturally expect anyone who joins us to do likewise.
This week, the members of Good Arts LLC, which owns our building, will be signing papers on a deal to puts preservationist group Historic Seattle at the helm. The original partners will remain involved, including Biscayne founder Jane Richlovsky and Steve Coulter, who will continue to drive the arts programming throughout the building.
This (as anyone who has lost creative space in a hot real estate market knows) is a big fucking deal. From the start, ’57 Biscayne has been about artists not whining but taking action. It took the first 5 years of ’57 Biscayne’s existence to make the Good Arts deal happen. Five years later, managing partner Greg Smith asked Jane and Steve to find a buyer for his share if they wanted to retain it as an arts building. They scrambled for a year and finally made the connection with Historic Seattle. It took yet another year to hammer out the Good Arts 2.0 deal which is being finalized this week.
Historic Seattle is a Public Development Authority (PDA) with a mission is to preserve communities like ours and the buildings that contain them. Jane and Steve plan to leave their share of the building to Historic Seattle as a legacy with the provision that it remain a place of affordable creative space in perpetuity.
The takeaway: ’57 Biscayne exists because a group of artists refused to believe the myth that they were passive victims to the changes in their city, and took action to secure their place in it. Our continued existence in the Good Arts Building demonstrates what is possible when people from different sectors—artists, developers, business people, preservationists—get out of their bubbles and work together.
Please save October 1 for a building-wide celebration. It’s the 11th anniversary of ’57 Biscayne and we have much to celebrate.
Stay tuned for announcements about exciting arts developments elsewhere in the building!
This studio has been rented. To receive notices about future openings, please sign up for our mailing list.
Studio 210 is available for rent, beginning February 1. This lovely space is 532 square feet, longer than it is wide. Windows face west onto First Avenue, with plenty of streaming afternoon sunlight (weather permitting) and gallery track lighting. Rent of $1200 monthly covers utilities, wifi, and shared use of common areas, which include kitchenette, clean restrooms, and spacious, professionally lit hallway galleries. Traditionally, we have had cooperatively-organized open houses twice a year, and spontaneous collaboration has been known to occur. We look forward to resuming all that and more soon.
Leases are one year with a month-to-month default option after that.
The members of this community are serious about their art, professional, and supportive of other artists. We welcome all peoples and genders, and naturally expect anyone who joins us to do likewise.
This studio has been rented. To receive notices about future openings, please sign up for our mailing list.
This cozy charmer will be available December 1, 2021. Studio 309 is 185 square feet and rents for $515/month. The studio has three huge west-facing windows, and decent heat/AC. Its slightly quirky shape lends itself well to an easel painter, or mixed-media artist with multiple small work stations.
Rent includes utilities, shared wifi, and use of common areas, which include kitchenette, clean restrooms, lobby areas with seating, and opportunities to help curate and show art in the hall galleries and other nooks and crannies. We have historically held cooperatively-organized open houses twice a year, which we hope to resume soon. Spontaneous collaboration has been known to occur, even during these crazy times.
Leases are one year with a month-to-month default option after that.
The members of this community are serious about their art, professional, and supportive of other artists. We care about our health and the health of others and have been diligent about keeping each other safe. We welcome all peoples and genders, and naturally expect anyone who joins us to do likewise.
The community-based preservation organization Historic Seattle is teaming up with the current owners of the Good Arts Building, whose upper floors are home to ’57 Biscayne studios, to preserve the building and continue its mission as a hub for arts, culture and creative enterprises in perpetuity.
Historic Seattle’s board has given preliminary approval to an agreement to purchase a majority stake in the property.
The Good Arts Building, located at 110 Cherry Street, on the corner of First Avenue, stands at the north gateway to Seattle’s Pioneer Square Preservation District.
Historically known as the Scheuerman Block, it was designed by Elmer Fisher in 1889 for Christian Scheuerman and completed in 1890. Throughout the years, the building has been a hub of entrepreneurial, creative, and colorful endeavors.
The name “Good Arts” pays homage to “Good Eats,” a two-story diner once housed in its walls. The building has also been home to department stores, a cigar shop, jazz club, boxing gym, brothels, speakeasies and the original office of Washington Mutual Savings Bank.
In the 1970s, the basement housed the first gay and lesbian community center in Seattle, followed by the Skid Road Theatre, in which such local theatrical stalwarts as Kurt Beattie, R. Hamilton Wright, and Linda Hartzell produced original shows during the company’s 10 successful years.
In 2011, the building took on its current role, as a hub for the arts, when a dozen artists, evicted from the nearby 619 Western Building, established ’57 Biscayne studios on the second floor.
In 2015, Good Arts LLC—an unlikely collaboration of developer Greg Smith, artist Jane Richlovsky, theatre veteran Steve Coulter, and Cherry Street Coffee founder Ali Ghambari—purchased the building with the mission of preserving its artistic heritage and affordability to creative enterprises. The building now houses 27 artist studios, as well as Bad Bishop Bar, Saké Nomi, Beneath the Streets Tours and other small businesses.
“Since acquiring the building in 2015, Good Arts LLC has done an incredible job of providing affordable space for artists in Seattle’s most historic and artistic neighborhood, Pioneer Square,” said Kji Kelly, executive director at Historic Seattle. “Protecting community use of space is critical in this changing city.
“While landmarking and historic districts save places, mission-based ownership is what protects purpose. Our organization is dedicated to saving meaningful places that foster lively communities, so this partnership with Good Arts LLC is in perfect alignment with our mission,” Kelly continued.
“Too often artists’ cultural and economic contributions are rewarded with displacement from the neighborhoods they helped make interesting and vital,” Richlovsky added. “It’s rare that developers recognize that, and even rarer they step up to help.”
“Arts and culture are central to the historic fabric of Seattle and what makes Pioneer Square and our broader community unique and vibrant to this day,” said Urban Visions CEO and Good Arts partner Greg Smith. “Preserving this building and the artistic endeavors within was a personal passion of mine and I am thrilled to see Historic Seattle taking this step to ensure the building’s long-term uses will remain focused on fostering arts, culture and creativity.”
Now, Richlovsky, who has had a studio in Pioneer Square for 20 years, is looking forward to a new chapter.
“I’m really excited to take what we’ve built together and hand the reins to Historic Seattle. They get us,” she said. “I am planning to be here for at least 20 more.”
October 1, 2021 marked the 10th anniversary of our founding.
What started as a tale of eviction, traffic and threats of earthquake has since turned into a stable, successful fixture and cultural icon of the historic arts district.
In 2011, 110 artists were evicted from the 619 Western building, the largest and longest- running artists’ community on the West Coast. The Washington State Department of Transportation (DOT) was paving the way for the State Route 99 tunnel, which would pass underneath the building.
The headlines screamed “artists evicted,” and much ink was spilled on the myth of the starving artist — hapless, helpless, and now, homeless.
Many of the artists themselves, however, had another plan in mind. As required by law, the DOT was to provide relocation benefits to qualifying artist-businesses. Resourcefully, about a dozen of the displaced artists pooled their benefits to build a new community of studios out of a vacant office space a few blocks away at 110 Cherry Street.
The timeline for their move was further accelerated when City of Seattle engineers independently determined the building to be seismically unstable, an immediate threat to life and limb.
Artist Jane Richlovsky took out a master lease on a floor of the historic Scheuerman Building around the corner on Cherry Street, secured permits, and found a contractor. She worked with other artists and the DOT to fund the moving of lights and walls, as well as the installation of work sinks and other amenities.
The artists put the finishing touches on the place, accomplishing the entire task in six weeks and moving in October 1, 2011, the deadline to vacate the old building.
Collaborations have been born within these walls, and our semi-annual open houses are popular destinations for exhibits, music, and affordable art. We have hosted tours of the studios for groups such as Main Street America, Alliance for Pioneer Square, Urban Land Institute, as well as college students from the University of Washington, and high school students bussed in from Mukilteo, Washington and Whitefish, Montana.
Wanting to assure ‘57 Biscayne’s future, as Pioneer Square grew into a restaurant and tech haven, Richlovsky and her partner Steve Coulter teamed up with Cherry Street Coffee House owner Ali Ghambari and developer Greg Smith to purchase the entire building together in 2015.
They formed Good Arts LLC with the mission of offering affordable workspace for artists and other creative small businesses to ensure the continued vitality and character of Pioneer Square and Seattle.
A few years later, when a tech company vacated another floor in the building, Good Arts built out another dozen studios, doubling ‘57 Biscayne’s capacity.
As creative spaces around the city have been lost to development and rising rents, many displaced artists have found their way to ‘57 Biscayne.
For ten years, the studios have been affordable workspace for a variety of artists, including painters, printmakers, analogue and digital photographers, jewelers, ceramicists, public artists, videographers, book designers, clothing designers, architects, a marimba duo and even a boutique video game console manufacturer.
Due to uncertainties around the Delta variant and ever-changing Covid protocols, a planned in-person 10th anniversary celebration has been cancelled.
Instead, we’ve created an online showcase of pictures, writing and videos centered around the work people have made and what their time here has meant to their artistic growth and careers.
This just in: A deal is imminent yet still unofficial that will ensure the existence of ‘57 Biscayne in perpetuity. Stay tuned!
Update: This space has been rented. To get first notice of future available studios, sign up for our mailing list.
This spacious beauty will be available October 1, 2021. Studio 312 is 735 square feet and rents for $1650/month. The studio has track & fluorescent lighting, and decent heat/AC. If you wanted to install ventilation to the outside, the infrastructure is there. There is 220v power. Other possible upgrades could be negotiated for the right long-term tenant. It would make a great shared maker space, photo studio, print shop, or gallery.
Rent includes utilities, shared wifi, and use of common areas, which include kitchenette, clean restrooms, lobby areas with seating, and opportunities to help curate and show art in the hall galleries and other nooks and crannies. We have historically held cooperatively-organized open houses twice a year, which we hope to resume soon. Spontaneous collaboration has been known to occur, even during these crazy times.
Leases are one year with a month-to-month default option after that.
The members of this community are serious about their art, professional, and supportive of other artists. We care about our health and the health of others and have been diligent about keeping each other safe. We welcome all peoples and genders, and naturally expect anyone who joins us to do likewise.
