Council Panel Backs Plan for Artists’ Center

Local artists’ dreams of turning an aging Gaslamp Quarter manufacturing building into living, working and performing space edged closer to reality Wednesday when a San Diego City Council committee voted 4-0 to spend $8,000 on a feasibility study for the unusual project.

Mike Gotch, chairman of the Public Service and Safety Committee, argued that the 50-year-old Ratner Building, if successfully recycled as a center for about 50 artists, could be a “magnet for downtown,” encouraging the creation of “a 24-hour city.”

The city’s Public Arts Advisory Board along with a new, private Artists Resources Center had sought public funds to investigate the architectural changes and costs for converting the five-story building, with its hardwood floors, high ceilings and hundreds of windows, into an artists’ complex.

They argued that the Ratner project could prove a showcase for San Diego’s new loft ordinance, a zoning change that allows artists to live and work in commercial and industrial buildings downtown.

The building, which houses a small sewing factory and several offices, sprawls over a city block at 13th and G streets at the northeast edge of the historic Gaslamp Quarter. Proponents of the art center idea figure they might take over about 50,000 square feet of the 155,000 square-foot-building, then gradually take over all the space.

The full City Council still must consider whether to finance the study at its Jan. 28 meeting. (The city is not being asked to buy or lease the building, arts center proponents said--only to help them investigate whether the experiment could be expected to work.)

For all the excitement about the project Wednesday, committee consultant Ernie Anderson argued strenuously against spending public money on it.

“The proposed allocation of funds primarily benefits the building owner. And maybe secondarily the artists. And maybe thirdly the city,” Anderson said. “While I believe the project is a good one, it is not appropriate to be funded by the City of San Diego.”

Initially, it appeared that Anderson might have some support from Councilman Uvaldo Martinez, who said he had “a problem” with paying for such a study. “Our intent of the public (arts) advisory board is art in public places,” he said. “This property is not public at this point . . . we’re stretching the mandate of the public arts board.”

In addition, Councilman William Jones objected to the source of the money. The arts board had recommended that money for the study come from $140,000 in city transient occupancy tax (TOT) money that was reserved to promote art in public places.

But Jones said he would support the study if the city money could come from some other source. The other committee members--Martinez, Gotch and Gloria McColl--voted to support the arts project study if the city manager’s office could suggest other funding sources than the TOT monies.

Art Skolnik, chairman of the Artists’ Resources Center, had said he needed a “clear indication” of committee support to persuade Ratner building owner Stanley Foster not to put the building on the market.

Skolnik got that signal from the committee Wednesday and he was pleased. The building has room for artists’ studios, a dance floor and even a gymnasium, and is “perfectly designed to accommodate this kind of use . . . It’s a gift,” Skolnik said. And without quick council action, he said, “it could be blown away.”