They’ll Be Painting the Town on a Many-Hued-Letter Day

Real estate agent Gil Marrero recalls the tough time he used to have luring artists to the downtown Santora Arts Complex, even when he offered bargain rates.

Except for one tenant, the building’s second floor sat vacant in early 1995. It was an uphill struggle, Marrero says, until a group of artists got a taste of Santa Ana while working on a mural at the nearby courthouse.

“It was click, click, click and bango, it started taking off,” Marrero said. “I was signing leases on the spot and out of my car.”

One year later, 40 artists sharing 30 rooms have almost filled the old office building to capacity with studios and works of art such as models of Hindu temples, portrait paintings and sculptures made of inflated bicycle innertubes.

An art opening this evening at various galleries and studios marks the one-year anniversary of the Santora as a building almost fully dedicated to the arts.

The privately-run Santora is the most visible result of the city’s fledgling Artists Village, a project hatched by local artists and city officials seeking to revitalize downtown with businesses centered on the arts. Some say that the downtown project has not yet turned the corner, and critics on the Santa Ana City Council say subsidies to the Artists Village could be better spent on police and youth centers.

But artists with Santora studios said the fact that the building is brimming with artists--five people are now on the waiting list for prime second-floor studios--shows that the arts have gained a foothold in downtown Santa Ana.

“When we first started off, there were a lot of questions--would we still be here in a year?” said artist Randy Au. “At the first opening, we got a lot of attention, but we were somewhat cautious. But people have still come into Santa Ana to see what we’re doing.”

Au and other tenants are opening their doors this evening to celebrate the center’s anniversary at Santora, 207 N. Broadway. Next door, a coffee shop called Neutral Grounds opens today and is one of a number of new businesses planned for the area.

Coffee shop owner Grace Sandlin said her business will cater to the local artists. “They all need a place to hang out,” said Sandlin, a Huntington Beach resident who lived in a studio in the Santora more than two decades ago.

Other future projects include a headquarters for the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art and spaces where art students from Cal State Fullerton can live and work in the same area.

The city has solicited proposals for the area’s first-ever live-work spaces for artists, in an area adjacent to the Santora.

Au says the Artists Village still has a long way to go, but said he is optimistic that the effort is on solid ground.

“There are people [artists] that have two- to three-year leases,” Au said. “So they gotta be here.”