CULTIVATING THE ARTS

CITIES BENEFIT FROM USING
THE ARTS AS AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TOOL

By Steve Wright

From almost the beginning of time, the arts have been supported by everyone from monarchs to popes to commoners because of their humane, beautiful, spiritual, and life-affirming qualities.

In these challenging economic times, an equal argument can be made for valuing the arts like precious infrastructure, as important to cities as walkability, transit and parkland and as essential as streets, water and sewer lines.

Countless cities -- from obscure to famous, from modest to sophisticated -- have used the arts to revitalize old neighborhoods, create nightlife in fading downtowns and spur economic development in tough times.

In Ventura, California, the arts are at the center of a landmark development that combines market rate condominiums, affordable space for artists and even transitional housing for formerly homeless people -- all in a LEED-certified green building that is just a few blocks from both downtown shopping and the Pacific Coast beach.

The $61 million mixed-use, mixed income utopia is called WAV -- Working Artists Ventura. It has 54 live-work units for artists with monthly rents starting at $400. The top floor features market-rate lofts selling for more than half a million per unit -- which helps subsidize the cost of the affordable units. There are also 15 units of transitional housing available for low income renters who do not have to be artists.