East Garrison ProjectBack to News

Abandoned, weather-beaten buildings stand near East Garrison Gate in Fort Ord. The red tile-roofed structures are historic reminders of depression era craftwork from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930’s and 1940’s. The buildings served generations of soldiers who fought in World War II, the Korean Conflict, Vietnam and Desert Storm. But when Fort Ord closed in the early 1990’s, the historic buildings that were once the heart of what became a massive military base fell into disrepair.

Now, if all goes as planned, the buildings will come alive again as the center of an arts district in a new residential development called East Garrison. The ramshackle WPA buildings will be transformed into artist studios and performance spaces. With what once served as a military training ground now possibly becoming an active bohemian community, the dream of a group of local artists is finally taking form. “About 15 years ago, a group of artists coalesced around a suggestion that maybe there was a role for the arts in Fort Ord after it closed,” says Richard Mayer, one of the founders of Arts Habitat, a local, non-profit arts provider.

Arts Habitat started with the vision of creating a place where local artists could live and work. Many of its members were in the Central Coast chapter of the Artist’s Equity Association, a visual arts organization. And they knew first-hand of the need for studio space and affordable housing for artists on the Monterey Peninsula. “For a long time, there was a perception that the Monterey Peninsula was known as an arts center. But that was really more in name than in actuality because it’s so expensive to live here, that a lot of artists can’t afford it,” says Marty Manson of Arts Habitat.

Arts Habitat commissioned three market surveys during the years it has taken to coax the dream into reality. The surveys were designed to put some hard facts behind the anecdotal evidence of local artists. And every survey came back with similar results. “Each time it has come back that people are looking for a place to work. The affordable housing/live-work component has simply gotten stronger every time we’ve asked the question,” says Manson. These focus groups have revealed that local artists need affordable housing and places to create and perform. One of the focus groups actually included a dance troupe from Salinas.

“They were all dancers and they had no space, no place to create dance, no place to rehearse. For a dancer to work out a new composition, where do you do that and where do you perform?” asks Manson. “It’s the same for any creative project. You need a place to create it and perform it. And if you’re making things, you need a place to store it. At a certain point, your living room won’t accommodate it anymore.”

DEVELOPERS AND ARTISTS

When Monterey County was looking to select a developer for the massive 1,400-home residential community on 244 acres of land overlooking the Salinas Valley, it asked Urban Community Partners if it would work with Arts Habitat. Urban Community Partners leaped at the opportunity and became the developer of the East Garrison project. “This is really exciting from a developer standpoint because you don’t get these kinds of opportunities very often,” says Keith McCoy of Urban Community Partners. And so the concept of creating an arts district with live/work and performance space for artists was born.

Placing the arts district near the town center of a residential development fit right in line with the Urban Community Partners’ development design philosophy. “We’re all about creating places for people, not just housing projects and sub-divisions,” says McCoy. “We’ve always been about ‘How do we make this unique in its particular setting?’” Urban Community Partners believed that an arts district would give the East Garrison project an identity. It is this sort of identity that has worked for other communities. “People flock to areas where there is art and artists, and where it’s a great place to live,” says McCoy. “Carmel and Laguna Beach started as bohemian get-away places.”

FINANCIAL CONCERNS

Creating a vibrant artist community on a long-abandoned military base posed enormous financial challenges for the developer. The WPA-era buildings that will form the core of the arts district required millions of dollars in renovations. “You’re looking at a $10 to $15 million cost to rehabilitate those buildings,” says McCoy. “And then you’re going to turn them over to artists who will pay rent, but just enough to break even. And then, how do you keep it perpetually affordable?”

After two years of grappling with the financial conundrum, Urban Community Partners came up with a solution. The developer and Arts Habitat teamed up with the largest non-profit artist developer in the country, Artspace.

Artspace created a workable plan to rehabilitate the historic buildings while also constructing housing for the artists. The result will be 100,000 square feet of artist studios and performance space in 24 buildings surrounded by 65 permanently affordable live/work lofts. This is one of the largest scale development projects ever undertaken by the Minnesota-based Artspace. With artists living, working, displaying and performing their creations here, the arts district will serve as a lively fulcrum for the sprawling residential neighborhood. “There are going to be people working and living in the area,” says McCoy. “It won’t be like a sub-division where everybody gets up and they leave their houses and their neighborhood and go off to work at some business park and they come home in the evening. There will be people there all day long, 24 hours a day working in the community. So it will be a lively place.” “It’s in the middle of what will become a housing community,” adds Manson. “So there will be a lot of other people able to participate in the activities of the arts district and to interact with the artists who live here.”