Live In Strathcona

Valerie Arntzen has been working diligently at raising awareness of the Arts Community in East Vancouver for more than a decade. With recent real estate boons, developers purchasing old properties in eastvan have become threats to existing Artist Studios in old buildings that hold more revenue potential when leveled.

Leveling existing structures enables New Condos, and such. What happens to the Artist Studios?

Sign the Petition to Save 901 Main St Studios

Please check the background on the subject:

Eastside Culture Crawl artists on the endangered list: Georgia Straight

Intro: Right after artist Eri Ishii hosts Eastside Culture Crawl visitors at her rental studio for the Eastside Culture Crawl this weekend, she’ll go to City Hall, hoping to save her creative space and the studios of 31 other artists who work there. Christopher Bozyk Architects, on behalf of Amacon developers, has applied to the city’s development permit board to turn the red-brick building at 190 Prior Street (formerly 901 Main Street) into 10 high-end apartments. (Read more …)

Vancouver Courier: East Side artists losing studio space

As the Eastside Culture Crawl nears, artists who will lose their studio space hope to draw attention to their concerns about encroaching development.

“Our biggest concern is we’re just the tip of the iceberg,” said Sarah Mousseau, one of 30 artists with a studio at 901 Main St. near the Georgia Viaduct. “Soon, events like the Culture Crawl, they won’t even be around because there won’t be spaces anymore.”

Do you have more to share? Post it here!

A Recent Email From Valerie Arntzen:

I am writing to you about the problem of losing a large studio space in the Eastside and a participant in the Crawl for the past 10 years. 901 Main Street has been bought by a developer Amacon who will turn it into a private residence for one of the owners and 9 other luxury suite rentals.

901 Main has been an artist studio since 1982 and we will be losing 30 artists spaces. The Crawl boundaries cannot absorb that many artists right now as there are not enough spaces. We are using 901 as a platform for what is happening in our city to Artists Work spaces (not live-work).

We are looking for people to either speak at the Vancouver City Council Meeting at City Hall, February 12, 2008 at 7:30pm or writing us a letter of support which can be read to the council. We need people from all walks of life and professions from the community…. business, architects, Realtors, artists, patrons, resident associations, etc.

If you are concerned we need your voice!

The Amacon Development Company will be at this meeting to sell their last pitch for the development approval. They might still get it, even with the 23 parking spaces now reduced to 8, and they only have 4 in the building and have not secured the other 4 off site. But we will not go down without a fight.

We are asking for a moratorium on that approval but we will see what happens. What we will get out of it is our voices heard about the problem so we can go forward to stop it happening to other buildings within the Crawl boundaries and the city.

To speak at council you have to put your name on the list….we hope to get 50 people…some can just read letters from other supporters or simply say how they feel about losing studio spaces….short and sweet is what we are looking for.

To register at the city either phone 604-873-7268 or email tina.hildebrandt (at) vancouver.ca or send your letter of support to Valerie Arntzen, 800 Keefer Street, Vancouver V7A 1Y7 or email to valerie(at)eastsideculturecrawl.com

Please forward to any other people who might be interested.

Also please fill out the petition to save 901 Main ....we are hoping to take 5000 signatures to council as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read this….Just so you know who I cc’d: Eri Ishii is spearheading the fight for 901 Main as an artist in that building for 13 years and Dori Luthy-Harrison is an artist from Mergatroid and president of the Eastside Culture Crawl Society.

Valerie