Sure would be a great project for one of our empty nearby schools:
District lofts project to combine housing and artists` space
From The WashPost
A one-story warehouse in Northeast Washington where artists have
come for more than 20 years to hone their craft is being
transformed into an arts campus where they will not only be able
to create, but also live.
The project, among the first of its kind in the District, will
break ground next month. Brookland Artspace Lofts is projected to
be completed by next year.
“Affordable housing is one of the most pressing needs that we
have as artists,“ said Carla Perlo, founder and director of
Dance Place, a dance school and arts center a few blocks from the
Brookland Metro station.
The project will involve razing Brookland Studios, the warehouse
where artists rent work space, and constructing a four-story
building with 41 housing units and underground parking.
Perlo said artists often are financially stretched by paying two
rents: one for housing and another for work space. As rental
prices have increased in the District (more than in most cities
across the country), many artists have fled to the suburbs, Perlo
said.
“For many people, the options are to move or to work outside the
field,“ she said.
Perlo, who has watched artists move to Mount Rainier, where a
burgeoning arts community has sprung up in an aging suburb, said
she hopes the project will go a long way to help artists who are
struggling to make ends meet.
It is one of the reasons why her facility has partnered with the
Minneapolis-based nonprofit group Artspace Projects on the $13
million housing project.
Bates Area Civic Association 