Decades ago, who would have thought that the graffiti-covered walls of deteriorated industrial buildings would catalyze the regeneration of an entire urban community? The 2016 ULI Global Award for Excellence presented to Miamis Wynwood Walls underscores how all types of art can become the foundation for economically successful placemaking.

A panel at ULI Washingtons recent Trends Conference explored strategies for strengthening communities identity and economic vitality with arts programming and local institutions. The session was moderated by Andy Shallal, proprietor of Busboys and Poets, a combined bookstore, restaurant, and performance venue with several locations in the Washington, D.C., area.

Shallal pointed out that creative placemaking can lead to gentrification, which, in turn, can cause displacement. Successfully regenerating urban neighborhoods can quickly become too expensive for the artists and longtime residents who created their communities allure to begin with. Displacement is an unintended consequence, but we keep doing it, he said.

Displacement does not always occur, argued Jim Brooks of City Solutions. It happens in strong markets, but not necessarily in weaker ones. It can be avoided by building in affordability over the long term, he noted, through land trusts, covenants, and similar measures. He also cited the success of a number of HOPE VI projects, which preserved affordable housing for many longtime residents. There is always pressure to build for the market rate, he warned.

Heidi Zimmers organization, ArtSpace, is devoted to creating, fostering, and preserving affordable space for artists and arts organizations. Financing usually combines state and federal low-income housing tax credits with a variety of other sources to maintain income-qualified housing and/or studio space for artists. The need for this type of housing became obvious in 2016 when a fire killed 36 people in an Oakland, California, warehouse that had been converted to an artists collective.

In 2006, the Washington, D.C., Department of Housing and Community Development asked ArtSpace to help expand and renovate Dance Place, which had helped generate a renaissance of development and investment in the citys Brookland neighborhood since 1986. ArtSpace and Dance Place formed a partnership to create a unique arts complex that is being built in two phases. Phase I, the mixed-use Brookland ArtSpace Lofts, is now in operation, while fundraising is underway for the complete renovation and expansion of Dance Places existing theater. Brooklands subsequently built $250 million mixed-use Monroe Street Market, using no public funding, includes 27 artists studios designated affordable in perpetuity.

Since its founding in 1979, ArtSpace has expanded to operate in 20 states across the United States. Its completed projects include nearly 2,000 live/work units and millions of square feet of nonresidential community and commercial space.

Juanita Hardy, ULIs senior visiting fellow for creative placemaking, believes that collaboration is the key to successful arts-focused community redevelopment with minimal displacement. ULIs Building Healthy Places Initiative, as part of a two-year creative placemaking project funded by the Kresge Foundation, has identified ten best practices in this area, summarized below and in her article in the March/April 2017 issue of Urban Land magazine:

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Curating Community through Intentional Placemaking - Urban Land