Kim Scott
and Sukie in their live/work spaceKim Scott does not commute. To move from her living room or kitchen to the place where she works, she doesn't even walk through a doorway.
Scott, a veteran Sacramento artist, lives like an artist. Not starving in a garret, but living comfortably and creatively with her husband, Craig, in one big, open room where she can use the light and work whenever inspiration strikes.
In New York and San Francisco, the type of "space" Scott lives in is generically called a "loft": a converted warehouse or factory that offers high ceilings, an airy feel and plenty of space for making paintings or sculptures -- or a comfortable home.
Sacramento doesn't have lofts like those in the big, old industrial buildings of Manhattan's TriBeCa or San Francisco's SoMa, because Sacramento never had many of the sprawling 19th century factory buildings that could be converted.
Nevertheless, Sacramento's artists, like artists everywhere, need somewhere inexpensive to live, and they need a place to work. And if they can get the two together, it's ideal.
"There's a tradition of artists working in their spaces -- you work on things at home, like a hobbyist might," Scott says. "But it's not a hobby, it's a profession."
So finding such a place is crucial. But it's not easy.
Still, it might get a little easier later this year in downtown Sacramento, which soon will see a boom in live/work spaces, most of them built in the style of the classic Manhattan loft.
There is, however, a wrinkle: Many of these planned lofts will not be priced for struggling artists. Most will rent for nearly $1,000 a month.
So members of one group are taking the matter into their own hands, planning to build their own lofts -- and pay for them with the sweat of their brows.
Scott is among them. She, with a handful of other artists, an architect, a volunteer attorney, the help of the city of Sacramento, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and Habitat for Humanity -- plus lots and lots of time, eight years so far -- have put together what they call Surreal Estates Ink,a cooperative venture in creating live/work spaces that will be owned by the artists who live in them.
"It's the first project of its kind in the United States, as far as we know," Scott says. "It's 11 single-family units, a subdivision for artists. It's a different kind of low-income housing."
Escrow is set to close in December, with groundbreaking soon to follow on a piece of property at the corner of Calvados Avenue and Oakmont Street between Arden Way and Del Paso Boulevard, in the area artists and gallery owners have dubbed the Uptown Arts District. It is here that Sacramento's artists and art scene have gradually concentrated over the past decade. And, they say, this is just the beginning.
"The Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission is renting an old building across the street, and there are about 15 different artist-related businesses nearby," Scott says. The tony imported furniture store Limnis just around the corner. And on any given second Saturday evening, art lovers crowd the many galleries in the area.
"It makes such sense to have an arts district," Scott adds. "Many towns, even smaller towns, have arts districts, and this place is ripe for it."
Until recently, Sacramento's arts district was diffuse. The places where artists live -- such as in Scott's current digs, east of the intersection of Alhambra Boulevard and Broadway, just behind a boarded-up KFC at the entrance to Oak Park -- were not in particularly desirable locations.
But that's traditional for artists, who are used to life on the fringes. The problem comes after the artists, who tend to be both more adventurous and less solvent than their more comfortable, 9-to-5 cousins, fix up these undesirable places.
And then suddenly, they find themselves living beyond their means.
"What happens," Scott says, "is that the artists rent a grungy old space, fix it up, and the landlord says, 'Well, this is cool, I can make more money.' And gradually, the artists are moved out and it becomes a trendy spot to live."
This has happened in New York and San Francisco, as well as in Seattle, San Diego and other cities with thriving artistic communities -- and lots of lawyers and stock traders and lobbyists with a taste for trendy urban living and the money to buy it.
This has fueled a certain resentment in artists, who dismiss such places as "lifestyle" lofts, as opposed to genuine live/work lofts. Some lifestyle lofts are being built in Sacramento right now, by people such as developer Sotiri Kolokotronis and Ron Vrilakas, a Sacramento architect and sometime developer.
Vrilakas is working on three loft complexes at once, two of them at the intersection of 15th and R streets, and a third near 19th and L streets. A fourth project is under way at the corner of 11th and R streets. The units in the last group are the only ones that will actually be for sale. The others will be rentals. And they won't be cheap.
Vrilakas understands the dynamics of the situation.
"Artists in many respects are out in front," he says. "They show an alternate way of organizing our homes, then the mainstream wants it. There's a demand for this feel, the loft feel.
"It's a legitimate dwelling type," he says. "I'm not a purist who says they must be for artists. They will likely be rented to people with good incomes. They'll be equivalent to (the cost of renting) a new apartment."
Still, Vrilakas says he is sympathetic to the artists' plight, and he says he "would like to see a true live/work artist district." He mentions Del Paso Boulevard and notes that Sacramento has plenty of places for that to happen. But, he says, it's not going to happen on increasingly valuable downtown and midtown real estate.
"It doesn't really pencil out to go into the best neighborhood and build lofts," he says. "The artist live/work district in San Francisco is not on Nob Hill."
Vrilakas notes that his new projects aren't displacing anyone, being either built from scratch or inside old warehouse buildings.
Surreal Estates Ink is building from scratch, too. Or from grass.
Robert Charland, a ceramicist and the president of Surreal Estates, is standing on the open field that reaches right up to the back of the North Sacramento School District office -- the district from which the artists are buying the property.
He spreads out blueprints and describes the 11 live/work units that will go up, if all goes well, this summer and fall. The units have been designed to fit the neighborhood.
Andrea Kincaid is the architect who drew the blueprints.
"The last thing we wanted to do was plunk down a building that didn't fit the neighborhood," she says. "So the dwellings will face out, onto the street, and the large studios are to the interior of the property, so you'll see what looks like small houses with porches, facing the existing small houses."
Since Charland first approached the school district to buy the parcel, engagement with the surrounding community has been crucial to everyone involved. Part of the agreement with the district states that one of the studios will be open to students for field trips.
"But we do that sort of stuff anyway," Scott says. "We know the neighborhood is a bit marginalized by poverty and other problems, so we want to make it a good thing.... We're getting involved in the neighborhood, buying goods and services from local businesses, making our buildings look nice."
Because they will be building equity in the units as they build the units themselves, the artists also will have their own investments to protect. Which is perhaps why not all of the units are spoken for yet.
"It's hard to get people to commit," Scott says. "We're still getting alternates, just in case. In most other cities, people are begging for studio spaces. And to own them? For a reasonable price? We're talking about $700 (a month) for 30 years. That's a good deal, but it's a commitment. The artists who can afford to own property already have something, and the artists who are too low-income to afford something like that are kind of afraid."
Meanwhile, downtown, where the new "lifestyle" lofts will come on the market, there is substantial interest.
"We get people calling and stopping in all the time," Vrilakas says. But questions remain: Will home buyers who could afford a nice house in the suburbs, with a yard and shade trees and no common walls with neighbors, want to move into loft spaces, however artistic they feel?
"It remains to be seen if this market will support it," Vrilakas says.
"Most of the people who are drawn to the loft lifestyle are people who are drawn to living in the center of cultural activities. Either they're couples who no longer have children at home, or they are singles or couples who like an urban lifestyle."
Scott, Charland and the other artists involved in Surreal Estates Ink aren't worried about how the market will respond to their project -- because they are the market. They're investing in their lives and their work at the same time.
In fact, says Scott, "this may not be a good investment from a real estate point of view. But I don't look at it that way. I'm investing in myself."