Artist Space Initiative

Artists help make Boston a more livable city - a city of people and neighborhoods, a center of cultural life, and a vital economic center. They function as small businesses by providing jobs and services for Boston residents. Since the late 1960s, artists have helped transform marginal neighborhoods into dynamic communities. Frequently, festivals, galleries, small performance spaces and small retail spring up in these same areas through the work of resident artists, generating a vibrant street life that acts as a deterrent to crime, dramatically enhancing the quality of neighborhoods for both the people who live there and people who visit.

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Drift Wall by Brian Knep, studio artist in Artblock's Bates Arts Center

Recent research and community process have determined that space/real estate concerns are a primary issue for Boston artists. At the direction of Mayor Thomas M. Menino, the BRA is working with other city agencies including the Mayor's Office of Arts, Tourism and Special Events and the Department of Neighborhood Development to retain existing spaces for artists and create new ones. We are particularly interested in projects that create spaces that:

• are permanently dedicated to artists through deed restrictions or similar legal mechanisms;
• are located in buffer zones between industrial and residential neighborhoods in locations that do not support traditional family housing; and
• offer live/work spaces (space where artists combine their residence with their work area, typically in an open floor plan offering large, flexible work areas) or work-only spaces (where residential use is not allowed) for rent and for purchase at a variety of prices with a preference for Boston residents

According to the Boston Zoning Code, artists in live/work units are the only occupational group permitted to live in industrially zoned areas of the city. For commercial and non-profit developers with an interest in developing space for artists, the BRA recently developed design guidelines to articulate minimum requirements to meet artists' needs (i.e., live/work units must be at least 1,000 square feet). Click here to access the BRA's Artist Space Design Guidelines.