As Jen recently reported, a small colony of artists with studios in Magnuson Park are being evicted on May 1st to make way for renovation and the development of commercial office spaces in Building 11. The artists are saying the city gave them two months to vacate after encouraging them not to resist developmentâthat they were told new spaces would be available for them in the west wing of Building 30. Now, after renting studios for five years in Building 11, the artists have been told that Building 30 wonât be ready for a few more years.
However, Seattle Parks and Recreation spokeswoman Dewey Potter says the parks department has been doing everything it can to find the artists a comparable place to move to, and itâs the artists who are not cooperating.
âWe started meeting with them in August 2008,â Potter says, âand weâve done walk-throughs of two schoolsâViewlands Elementary, near Carkeek Park, and E.C. Hughes in W. Seattleâthat everyone agreed at the time were potential sites.â
Potter says the problem is that the artists then talked amongst themselves and decided E.C. Hughes was too far away and both schools would need renovating, and the artists worry that renovating an old school would psychologically divert funds from renovating Building 30 for their eventual use. Basically, as a group, the artists donât know what they want so the parks department canât really help them.
She adds the artists also have the option of staying put, but theyâd have to pay market rent once the development on Building 11 was completed. Current artist rents for a Magnuson studio space run from $.65 a square foot per month to $.87 a square foot per month. Comparatively, in 2008 the average rent rate for studio space in the city was $1.22 square foot per month.
âWeâve been straight with them from day one,â Potter says. âTheyâve known this was coming and theyâve known theyâre getting a great deal.â