Artists’ Lofts: Another Step in Revitalizing Downtown : Redevelopment: Old brick building on Daisy Avenue is transformed into bright studio apartments at a cost of $1.2 million. But it was a trying process for the builder, and conflicts still exist in city codes.
Early morning light streamed down from a skylight two floors up, illuminating huge canvases, paint tubes and a calico cat lounging on the stairs.
This would be a peaceful scene in artist Amy Ellingson’s Long Beach loft, but for a dozen city planners standing in her dining room to admire what architect and developer Carl Day had wrought.
Here in an old brick building, former home of the Royal Windjammer cocktail lounge just northwest of downtown, are 11 bright artists’ lofts.
In place of tiny rooms that had been used for private adult entertainment in the old Windjammer are light-filled spaces with high ceilings and exposed bricks and beams.
The planners believe Day’s renovation of the old bar is another step toward their vision of downtown Long Beach as a vibrant collection of businesses, residences, entertainment and tourist destinations.
“Planners see artists as kind of priming the pump,” said Robert Ringstrom, urban design officer. “They revitalize an area because they will go in before anyone else and use their energies to bring it up.”
Seven of the studios have three levels, and two are storefront spaces with floor-to-ceiling windows. Artists are encouraged to use the hallways as galleries.
Day’s studios on Daisy Avenue are the only legal artists’ lofts in Long Beach, although at least one other converted warehouse serves as studio space for artists willing to live outside city codes. Planners hope Day’s project will be the template for future studio developments.
The question is, will more architects and artists find their way through a maze of conflicting city codes to create such studios?
Ask Day, who spent three years and $1.2 million on the Windjammer-to-loft project, and he answers with an ironic smile.
He would like to construct similar lofts. While other rental projects are suffering from low occupancy, all but one of his Daisy Avenue studios were rented when the building opened in November.
But Day says getting city approval was wrenching.
“The whole idea seemed fairly new for the city,” Day said. “One day, a planner would say ‘Yes’ to something. The next day, another would tell you, ‘Absolutely no.’ It was frustrating.”
By the city’s definition, artist studios are a strange hybrid--part commercial, part light-industrial and part private home. Live-in work places were virtually outlawed until September when an ordinance was passed, largely in response to Day’s project, said David Evans of the Building and Safety Department.
The new building code might make it easier for future developers, but it does little to lure artists downtown, said David de Hilster, a research scientist, painter and resident of Day’s Daisy Avenue project.
The code states that no one under 18 may live in a loft, precluding an artist from having children, and the living area may not exceed 25% of the total space. The code also says that every resident must purchase a business license before moving in--at a cost of about $300.
“The idea is that if art is your trade and you sell it out of your house, then that’s a business and it requires a license,” Ringstrom said.
The problem is, many young artists are not well known enough to sell their work, de Hilster said.
“I don’t have a business license and I’m not going to get one until I start selling,” he said.
While Day tried to rent the studios only to active artists--he rejected a proposal to turn one storefront into a dry cleaners--not all the residents are producing art.
But officials do not plan to monitor the residents. Whether the resident of an artists’ loft is a painter or lawyer or student is of no concern to the city, Evans said.
At another project on Broadway near the World Trade Center, Jim Jennings spent $130,000 on a warehouse-to-loft conversion. He said the site is zoned for a 30-story high-rise but it cannot be built until economic conditions are brighter.
“The city suggested that we make it into artist studios in the interim. But when we opened a year and a half ago, it wasn’t technically legal (for artists to live there) and we had to tell prospective tenants that,” Jennings said.
Sculptor Rob Gregory said his loft in the Broadway conversion has few amenities. He had lived in studios in Los Angeles for years and was used to somewhat primitive conditions, he said, but his new home was daunting.
“The space was big enough, but there were just two pipes sticking out of the wall and that was it,” Gregory said. “I spent $2,000 just putting in a bathroom, a water heater and . . . electricity.”
When he was finished, Gregory still had a roof so leaky that two corners of his brick walls became waterfalls during a rainstorm. He moved out recently after about a year, having spent almost $1,000 a month for rent, parking and maintenance.
Residents of the converted warehouse are free to paint the hallways or hang their work there. Eight units were carved out of the old space, but about half have remained empty. Part of the problem, Jennings said, is the neighborhood that was supposed to benefit from the studios’ presence.
“Local toughs seem to be scaring people off. We find windows broken a lot,” Jennings said.
Mark Morgan, a Los Angeles police officer and writer who lives in one of the studios, agrees. If he wasn’t authorized to carry a gun, Morgan said, he wouldn’t live in the neighborhood.
“I’ve had to pull my gun more than once when someone has approached me from behind as I’m coming home late,” Morgan said. “There’s a lot of drug dealing, right outside.”
Residents of the Daisy Avenue studios have fewer crime complaints, but de Hilster’s wife, Doris, was threatened with a knife recently by a man who stormed into her storefront clothing studio. Despite the threat, the de Hilsters are staying, they said.
“Some day, these studios will probably go condo, and then we want to buy in,” David de Hilster said. “A few years down the line, it’s going to happen here. This will be a great area to live.”
