The community-based preservation organization Historic Seattle is teaming up with the owners of the Good Arts Building to preserve the building and continue its mission as a hub for arts, culture and creative enterprises in perpetuity.

Historic Seattle’s board has given preliminary approval to an agreement to purchase a majority stake in the property from Greg Smith, and form a new entity with current owners Steve Coulter, Jane Richlovsky, and Smith, who will retain a minority share.

Historically known as the Scheuerman Block, the Good Arts Building was designed by Elmer Fisher in 1889 for Christian Scheuerman and completed in 1890. Throughout the years, the building has been a hub of entrepreneurial, creative, and colorful endeavors. 

In 2011, the building took on its current role, as a hub for the arts, when a dozen artists, evicted from the nearby 619 Western Building, established ’57 Biscayne studios on the second floor.

In 2015, Good Arts LLC—an unlikely collaboration of developer Greg Smith, artist Jane Richlovsky, theatre veteran Steve Coulter, and Cherry Street Coffee founder Ali Ghambari—purchased the building with the mission of preserving its artistic heritage and affordability to creative enterprises. The building now houses 27 artist studios, as well as Bad Bishop Bar, Saké Nomi, Beneath the Streets Tours and other small businesses.

“Since acquiring the building in 2015, Good Arts LLC has done an incredible job of providing affordable space for artists in Seattle’s most historic and artistic neighborhood, Pioneer Square,” said Kji Kelly, executive director at Historic Seattle. “Protecting community use of space is critical in this changing city.

“While landmarking and historic districts save places, mission-based ownership is what protects purpose. Our organization is dedicated to saving meaningful places that foster lively communities, so this partnership with Good Arts LLC is in perfect alignment with our mission,” Kelly continued.

“Too often artists’ cultural and economic contributions are rewarded with displacement from the neighborhoods they helped make interesting and vital,”  Richlovsky added. “It’s rare that developers recognize that, and even rarer they step up to help.”

“Arts and culture are central to the historic fabric of Seattle and what makes Pioneer Square and our broader community unique and vibrant to this day,” said Urban Visions CEO and Good Arts partner Greg Smith. “Preserving this building and the artistic endeavors within was a personal passion of mine and I am thrilled to see Historic Seattle taking this step to ensure the building’s long-term uses will remain focused on fostering arts, culture and creativity.”

Now, Richlovsky, who has had a studio in Pioneer Square for 20 years, is looking forward to a new chapter. 

“I’m really excited to take what we’ve built together and hand the reins to Historic Seattle. They get us,” she said. “I am planning to be here for at least 20 more.”

In 2015 an unlikely crew—artists, developer, coffee-shop owner—forged an alliance to buy a historic building in Pioneer Square. We dubbed it the Good Arts Building, in an homage to the “Good Eats Cafeteria” that once occupied it, and also as a statement of their purpose. Since its inception, Pioneer Square has historically been home to the performing and visual arts. During economic down-times, artists have snatched up cheap warehouse space, while scrappy black-box theatres claimed dilapidated storefronts, revitalizing the neighborhood in the process. Artists, theatres, art galleries and small quirky businesses have given the neighborhood its identity and “vibrancy” as they say nowadays. The Good Arts Building was founded so that these creators of cultural and economic value could stick around to reap the benefits.

Our model for sustainability harvests the synergy of the complementary businesses that occupy the building: the studio artists attract attendees to exhibitions and events; those attendees patronize the restaurants and shops. A guy who comes in for a haircut buys a vintage suit and has it tailored, all without leaving the building. Part of the coffeehouse doubles as a gallery, bringing interest to the restaurant and income to the artists.

The arts were infused into every corner, raising the foot traffic and the value of the location, while the rents of the studios remained affordable to creative small businesses, yet sustainable for the building. Over the past five years, work spaces for artists have alarmingly disappeared across the city: In the same period, Good Arts added 14 studios to ’57 Biscayne’s existing 14, plus a street-level arcade of maker and micro-retail spaces.

Making space for the arts turned out to be a good business decision. The art studio tenants have paid rent in full every month of the pandemic, and helped us get through the year.

A boutique guest rental for overnight stays supplements our revenues. Moreover, a model of 100% occupancy, rather than the traditional 80%, along with the creative use of underutilized spaces, has allowed us to  pay our bills while still maintaining affordability.

In 2017, we combined our three corner storefronts to create a new anchor location for Cherry Street Coffee House, with a stunning remodel by Atelier Drome architects. That same year, we converted a neighboring long-vacant storefront into Good Arts Arcade, consisting of four boutique-sized retail spaces that open on to a central gallery, currently occupied by a bespoke tailor, hair design studio, and a perfumerie.

We also gave the exterior its first paint job in over twenty years, with a new color scheme designed by the resident artists. Customized steel flower basket hangers, featuring pictorial nods to the buildings’ colorful occupants past and present, and handmade by owners Richlovsky and Coulter, reinforce our identity and add visual interest. In 2019, Bad Bishop Bar picked up the final storefront and gave it a gorgeous makeover, opening to rave reviews.

As it turns out, making space for the arts was a really good business decision. This year, when the restaurants and retail tenants saw a precipitous drop in revenues, or had to close entirely, our rental receipts took a hit, just like those of every commercial building owner. However, the art studio tenants have paid rent in full every month of the pandemic, and helped us get through the year.

Our tenants and partners continue to creatively respond to challenges: Cherry Street Coffee, a daytime business, is making room in the mezzanine for Sake Nomi tasting room, an evening destination. They will share some seating (when we can sit inside again), and their coexistence will add to the dynamism of the whole. We invested in community when we bought this building, and community is what is helping us survive.

This year, we are looking for additional partner-owners, people who share our vision of a world where creatives reap the benefits of their work, to help write the Good Arts Building’s next chapter. It’s an opportunity to invest in the creative economy and Seattle’s future. Contact us if this sounds like you.

R.I.P. the album cover, sort of. We said our goodbyes to that roomy square-foot of substantial cardstock, with its fantastic artwork — maybe by Warhol or Dali or Mapplethorpe —to name just a few. We also said our goodbyes to the hours of contemplation of the cover-art while the music spun on a nearby turntable, a unique synthesis of the aural with the visual with the tactile — a feast for the soul. Then the album cover was demoted in both size and importance, a mere afterthought of a booklet cover, encased in brittle plastic. Now stripped of its physicality entirely, it’s relegated to the ether where its low-rez pixelated remains live out their diminished existence barely visible on tiny hand-held screens. Until now! With LP sales now at a twenty-eight-year high, the album cover (both genuine and fake) is back!

Original Hits by Original Artists, opening May 4 at the Good Arts Building, will pay proper homage to the art of the album cover, both past and present—without the album. The exhibit features covers for dozens of fabricated albums cut by bands that exist only in the artists’ imaginations. The show will be on view May 4 – May 31, 2017 in our 108 Cherry Street storefront, downstairs from ’57 Biscayne & next door to the future home of Cherry Street Coffee House.

A Release Party and reception for the artists will be held First Thursday, May 4, 6:00 -10:00 p.m. followed by the Upstream Music Fest, May 11-13, when there will be actual live (if unrelated) music on site, programmed by Upstream during the run of the festival. One of a handful of free venues in the neighborhood, it will be open from 4-8PM on May 11 & 12; and 1PM-8PM (music 4-8PM only) on May 13. Beer and snacks will be available for purchase during the festival courtesy of co-owner Cherry Street Coffee House. The exhibit will also be open on the last two Fridays and Saturdays in May, from 1-6PM and by appointment.

Original Hits is co-curated by artists Jane Richlovsky and Dara Solliday of ’57 Biscayne studios which, incidentally, were named for a Joni Mitchell song lyric. For this show Richlovsky and Solliday invited approximately thirty-three and one third artists to unearth those long-forgotten catch phrases that had once sparked a reply of “That would make a great band name!” and then create a full-size old-school 12-inch LP album cover for this hypothetical hitmaker. Artists include Romson Bustillo, Kelly Lyles, Nia Michaels, Jed Dunkerley, Gabriel Campanario, Richlovsky, and Solliday, showing fake album covers in paint, collage, repurposed tin, textiles, wood, and who knows what else.