This Just In

AS220’s new space for artists at the Dreyfus

Housing crunch

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 21, 2007

We sometimes hear that Providence — and Rhode Island — has the highest per-capita accumulation of artists in the country. Unverifiable stats notwithstanding, the town has developed a rep as an attractive location for artists, convenient to both Boston and New York. Trouble is, all this creative camaraderie also makes for a lot of competition for the same limited low-priced studio/living space, driving up prices. Nowadays, even Philadelphia is more affordable than Providence.

Addressing that problem is AS220, the nonprofit artist-run organization that already has work and living spaces for 19 musicians, writers, and visual artists in its downtown Empire Street building. The $7.1 million conversion of the former Dreyfus Hotel, around the block at 121 Washington St., at the corner of Mathewson Street, is well enough underway to schedule walk-throughs of the 1890s building.

The next open house is slated for Sunday, February 25 from 1 to 3 pm. Residents will began carting in their boxes in May of 2008.

Originally, the Dreyfus was a traveling salesmen hotel, and eventually a Johnson & Wales dormitory, until 2000, after which it remained empty. On the debut tour two weeks ago, stacks of sheetrock and the stray commercial floor sander had to be walked around, but more than 40 potential residents showed up. Outside, steel scaffolding was more noticeable than the terra-cotta decoration; inside, the ornate woodwork that will be preserved for a ground-floor restaurant was no competition for the construction debris.

But rooms on the three floors upstairs were coming along, muted yellow walls warming the winter light pouring through the new double-pane windows. Gas stoves were already set into unfinished Formica counters in the living spaces.

The Dreyfus will contain 19 units of affordable studios for artists, five work-only and 14 residential.

“We have some catalogs on Murphy beds,” AS220’s Shawn Wallace said over his shoulder as he led some interested tire-kickers through a fourth-floor residential apartment that had meager closet space, but the building’s only skylight.

Two of the apartments are handicapped accessible. There will be a small elevator. Rents will be $410-$585 for the 11 living units available for artists with incomes under $25,600. The remaining three residential studios, with no income restrictions, are going for $800-850. Work-only studios will be $180-$260. Parking and electricity are not included, but gas, high-speed Internet, and central heating/AC are.

“They are about $10 per square foot, which is in the middle of the $7-to-$12 range for affordable studio space in the city,” Wallace said. He is As220’s managing director and is in charge of the project.

“Definitely right now there’s a crisis for really cheap work space,” he said. “A lot of mill development is displacing these people. That’s part of the need we’re hoping to address.”

And studio space is not the only problem that AS220 has its eye on solving.

“We may do a building after the Dreyfus — incubator office space, affordable space for organizations that are just starting out.” Wallace said.

On the Web
AS220: www.as220.org