By Carinajulig cjulig@sfnewmexican.com
City to vote on lease for visual arts center, potentially paving way for $28M midtown development.
More than two and a half years after entering into an exclusive negotiation agreement with a coalition called the Midtown Arts and Design Alliance, the Santa Fe City Council is set to vote next month on whether to approve a development agreement and ground lease for an ambitious visual arts center at the city-owned campus.
Approval would pave the way for a three-phase, $28 million development that supporters have said will bolster both the city’s economy and its community-focused arts scene.
“It’s been a long time coming, and we’re really, really excited,” Midtown Arts and Design Alliance executive director Jamie Blosser said in a recent interview.
Public comment on the ordinance, sponsored by Mayor Michael Garcia, and Councilors Jamie Cassutt and Pilar Faulkner, is scheduled for Wednesday. A final vote on the item is currently set for Wednesday, June 10.
The proposal is one of a number of ideas currently moving forward as part of the redevelopment of the city-owned midtown campus, including exclusive negotiation agreements for two live-work developments focused on technology and the arts, and an agreement with Homewise Inc. for a proposed town home complex.
The visual arts center is one of three arts-focused complexes the city sought to put up for lease or sale as part of a 2022 bid process along with a film studio and the Greer Garson Theatre. The former became Aspect Media Village, and the latter the city later decided to redevelop itself, a process that is still in its early stages.
In August 2023, city officials entered into an exclusive negotiation agreement with the Midtown Arts and Design Alliance for the visual arts center, which will include the former World War II-era military barracks on the site, as well as Tishman Hall, the Marion Center and the Tipton Lecture Hall.
The facilities will be renovated into workshop, studio, office and performance space for the alliance’s partner organizations, which include MAKE Santa Fe, Little Globe, MASS Design Group, Santa Fe Indigenous Center, Girls Inc. and YouthWorks. The Santa Fe Art Institute, which Blosser formerly led, is spearheading the partnership.
Community benefits of the project include “internship, entrepreneurship and professional development opportunities,” according to materials from the Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency. It is projected to serve more than 2,000 young people and 1,800 adults per year.
Delays, details
The exclusive negotiation agreement was extended several times, ultimately expiring in June while the city and the alliance were working on the terms of the ground lease and development deal.
Blosser said the project is about a year behind schedule from where she had initially hoped it would be.
During a Wednesday presentation to the Metropolitan Redevelopment Commission, Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency Deputy Director Carly Venditti said the agreement, which was developed by outside legal counsel, took longer to put together than anticipated. A requirement the property be appraised created an additional delay after the agreement had been crafted.
“It was a bit longer than expected, and we have learned from this process,” she said.
The project will be developed in three phases:
- Renovation of the Marion Center and Tipton Hall buildings and replacement of the HVAC systems in 2027.
- Renovation and HVAC replacement at Tishman Lecture hall in 2027 and 2028.
- Asbestos remediation and other renovation work on the military barracks in 2028 and 2029.
The city will retain ownership of the property, with an initial lease term of 10 years.
If the agreement is approved, Blosser said the alliance has an architect ready to start working right away on the development plan, which will be subject to an administrative approval process under the midtown master plan.
Fundraising
The alliance will also work on finishing the fundraising needed for construction on Phase 1 of the renovation project, currently short about $2 million.
Under the terms of its agreement, Blosser said the alliance will need to demonstrate it has reached 100% financing before construction can start on each phase: “Nobody wants any surprises.”
Concern from some of the councilors about whether the alliance would be able to reach its stated fundraising goals came up during the conversations about the exclusive negotiation agreement, with Councilor Lee Garcia voting no and then-Councilor Signe Lindell abstaining.
Since then, the project has lost a $4 million in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which were terminated by the Trump administration.
Overall costs for the project have also risen due to delays in the original timing as the price of materials continues to go up.
Despite the setbacks, Blosser said she feels confident the alliance can meet its targets, and that one of the biggest challenges to date in fundraising has been the lack of a lease agreement with the city.
“A lot of the philanthropists have been waiting, frankly, for the city green light,” she said. If that happens, “they’ll feel so much more confident that there’s not going to be further delays or obstacles, and that they can really invest in the project.”
She said the significant decrease in federal funding for social services and arts initiatives under the Trump administration has also led people to understand the importance of local support in a way they may not have before.
“One silver lining is that it has forced us to really look more locally and regionally, and we’ve seen that support come back to us,” she said.
The project has about $200,000 in state capital outlay.
Team growth
In order to prepare for the next phases of the project, the Midtown Arts and Design Alliance is bringing on several new team members.
Daniel Hernandez, the city’s former Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency director, will oversee the alliance’s fundraising and financing work.
The alliance is also bringing on board Mayrah Udvardi as an architect, who at MASS Design has also worked on the midtown neighborhood stabilization plan.
In August, Blosser herself will move into the position of founding director as she assumes the role of curator of the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, of which she is an alum.
She will continue to be involved in midtown, however: “This is about strengthening, not pausing.”
Blosser said she expects the alliance’s member organizations to have a strong presence at public comment Wednesday. She said it has also received support from other organizations involved at midtown, including Chainbreaker Collective.
Chainbreaker Collective spokesperson Cathy Garcia noted that the Santa Fe Art Institute was one of the organizations that helped create the community engagement process that led to the midtown community development plan. That plan guides development at midtown, along with the midtown master plan.
The creation of the visual arts center would respond to the desire outlined in the community plan for community-centered arts space, Garcia said Monday: “It feels like a really easy win for everyone involved.”
She said she is excited the agreement is now in front of the councilors and that after a long wait, she hopes the project can continue at a quicker pace, saying she worries additional delays could potentially cause financing for the project to unravel in a way similar to the proposed affordable housing renovation of the Lamplighter Inn.
“It doesn’t have to be hostile,” to create problems, she said. “It just has to be bureaucratic.”