Transcripts For SFGTV2 20131123

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. Its a Beautiful Day in San Francisco. My name is Joaquin Torres the director of economic and Work Force Development and the mayors investing Neighborhood Initiative which is an office coordinates through out our neighborhood commercial services that our private partners bring to bear. It also includes something we realize in the city which is the Central Market economic strategy. One of those objectives is ensuring that Central Market is a center here in our city. All of us here are here today to celebrate a very important milestone of building up creativity in our city. To kick us off to talk about this achievement is our mayor, ed lee. Thank you, joaquin. He works very hard and others that scour these blocks all the time working with all the residents and artist and Small Businesses have been wonderful. As many of you know i have worked very hard on the revitalization of Market Street. We have shown some success, but weve always said and i want to emphasize this, youve heard me say this before, the artist in the Community Led this effort to begin with. They took a lot of risk. So weve never allowed them to escape from our mind about the future of midmarket. They have always been in our sight whether they are living here, working here, we want to make sure they are staying here. Yes, rents are rising because of our success, but we still should take care of everybody. This is our city 100 percent. Today we are announcing one special effort thanks to the can an foundation, wonderful organization, and their collaboration with the Community Loan fund working with our offices and Community Base nonprofits, we have established something that has been in the works for a number of months, but its now established well and its called cast. That is Community Arts stabilization trust. Cast in short for theatre cast. Everybody gets that except for those like me who are new to this. I want to be part of that cast because they are taking a concept that i think you will see repeated in other sectors. That is, when you are a subject and victim to Property Ownership, you have to change that around. So for the arts, kenneth rain an and the Community Loan fund, we decided to let us try to turn that paradigm around and become Property Owners ourselves for the benefit of the Community Arts program. Thats the concept here under cast. Rather than just announce it, we are actually announcing the ownership of at least two buildings they have already taken control over at 80 Church Street which is formally called the doll house. The ownership is now under cast as well as the luggage store. Isnt that a wonderful thing to have control over your own destiny . [ applause ] its kind of like somebody owning their first home, they have begun to own their own destiny. Thats a small part but a very important part of the whole puzzle of keeping everybody on Market Street engaged and participating in this economic success. I want to say thank you to the rain an fund, thank you to Northern California cal Community Loan program and the luggage store and to all the tenants involved in this building. Right now its not just luggage store, its hospital house, the arts program that even the tech programs decided they would donate. We got a donation from visual arts to supplement the house and the representative for all the artist. A good portion that want to be here and stay here and continue practicing the arts for all of us. Arts are part of success for San Francisco, they are part of the culture, they are part of the International Flavor of San Francisco. We are going to continue doing everything we can to support their existence, their survival and their success. When we drafted the Market Street economic strategy, we had arts right there focused. Now weve got some answers, now weve got some models to exhibit out there. So these first two successful Building Owner ships are just the beginning. When the arts programs established themselves as part owner of these wonderful buildings we have here, they are going to also need the continued support of our city, of our residents, of the tech workers up and down and Small Businesses up and down Market Street to not only continue with performances but to support them. Arts is about Community Action and support. I want to thank the arts, the Arts Commission for being great partners with this and they are also the effort. And i want to thank karen as well. Shes been a strong leader to make sure we took care of existing assets and people who were already here. We often talk about people already here, we have to build upon them as the current assets before we invite new people to come. As we invite new people to come, they also have to experience their contributions to the existing culture of this city and of this wonderful Market Street. You know you are already seeing the holiday lights appear on Market Street. What we have towards this holiday what we are doing for residents at 1047 and 1069 to keep them here, the Small Businesses we are inviting here, the arts program here today we are going to have a lot to celebrate these holidays because they are the same people that have been here forever that still want to be part of the success at San Francisco. I want to thank everybody for working together and i know well go through a lot of the specifics. This is a wonderful day to announce the existence of cast and thanks to the rain an and loan foundation. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, mr. Mayor. When you talk about leadership, its always important to have the local leadership of your supervisor and the incredible advocacy and teaching that you do for all of us to ensure we are serving the community to the best of our ability. Now we have one of our best supervisors jane kim. Base guitarist. My first show was at the shop many years ago. Speaking about the arts in the 2000 i cofounded a space here in San Francisco in south of market. I remember having a Performance Arts space, we moved three times in 6 years and finding spaces to support them was in incredibly challenging during that time. We were eventually able to share spaces through other Arts Organizations, but i do remember how important permanent physical space was. Thats why its so exciting to be here 13 years later to celebrate the acquisition of two very important buildings here in the tenderloin and midmarket for two organizations that have held strong in the midmarket area for a long time and thats leading and luggage store gallery, i want to recognize mr. Smith and jessica from counter paul. Its so fun to be able to kind of switch roles as our Arts Community grows. I remember going to the intersection of the arts and now they are here a block away at 5 m and dr. Cohen is now the director of Yerba Buena Center for the arts. That is Community Begins to evolve, we are here growing the job sector here in midmarket. In 2011 when the mayor held a press conference across the street, we had the highest vacancy commercial rate in the city. What we are seeing now at midmarket is that Everyone Wants to be here now. Of course what that means that Everyone Wants to be here, what does that mean for the Arts Community that has always been here. This is going to keep artist and the Artist Organization here. It was great to work with the california Community Loan funds and the office of Economic Development to make this a reality. Over the past couple of year with hard work and procuring money and Property Owners we were able to procure these sites to ensure the arts remain here permanently. This is a huge effort. Its not just the elected officials that get to stay here. Its the main Market Community that holds this together. Whether its the collaborative that continues to advocates for Public Safety and all of you that make this a viable and dynamic and Exciting Community and diverse. Thats the challenge here. We are trying to revitalize this area and still remain diversity. Its not going to happen easy. There is going to be a lot of challenges. But whats exciting is that everyone here from the Mayors Office is committed to making that the reality here on Market Street. Thank you very much. [ applause ] thank you very much, supervisor. And to talk about the incredible entity that has been created to help us celebrate today is the president of cast and also a board member of the foundation. That is eric roaden back. [ applause ] hi. I would like to thank mayor ed lee and supervisor jane kim. Its incredible to be standing here with them. Thank you. We appreciate the commitment the city has shown forecast and for the Arts Community. I have lived in the tenderloin for 10 years and this is a warm spot in my neighborhood. This used to be a cool neighborhood in San Francisco and its great to be back on track. As the mayor said, this is the greatest place for Economic Development for the community and its also important educational resource and help us transcend barriers across these communities. These dynamics are as the mayor and supervisor said are seriously impacting the art and we need a permanent solution to address the displacement of our organization. We collaborate with local government agencies, businesses, and Civic Leaders and artist to purchase and lease space for artist in the organization and to develop and expand their facilities and purchase their own facilities. We are developing this with the can an foundation and we fund arts in San Francisco. And its with the citys key artist the need for space which forms a huge challenge. It doesnt matter how much we provide if we dont have a place for performance art. We are providing 5 million in seed funding over 5 years to cast. [ applause ] Northern California Community Loan foundation has extensive experience working with Arts Organizations and they helped us identify these two Key Properties so we can start doing something about it. They also understand the concept of buying new property in this neighborhood and that adds to the investment in the neighborhood. If you invest 100s in 100 in the neighborhood you get 20 back. We look forward to working with them in the future in concert with the mayors Central Market economic strategy. So our first major undertaking, this includes two pilot projects in the district focusing on supporting counter post and the luggage gallery. As a board member over the years weve awarded these project grants and given some organization to put on the project. My coboard member is engaged in multiyear Capacity Building grants. An organization that we can help create their own capacity so they dont have to continuously rely on us and this was in someway that we heard over again what they needed mostly to be successful was affordable space. This is a step in the multiyear effort. We are proud to announce these two projects. With your help we can move this further. We need foundation and individual investors to help us expand this work. We know that we can expand our role. We honor the reliability and we invite you to join us. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you very much, eric. Now to the beneficiaries of this incredible outcome. First we stand in front of the luggage store today so i want to welcome darryl smith. Thank you, mayor lee and supervisor kim, the focus that you are bringing to this project. I want to thank all of you for being here. Looking out at you i see the diversity that is reflective of what midmarket and tenderloin encompasses. I wanted to bring your attention to this structure that local artist dustin made. Its kind of a scrapie recycled construction of the buildings that are to symbolize our home, our continuation and to be able in midmarket and to be able to do what we do which is to support artist and their formative Early Careers and to also to support the notion of affordable living for those artist. There are several hundred artist that moved here and began migrating to Central Market during the time of the dot com that forced them out of the mission. This is where they came here. We moved here in 1991. We had a beneficiary who rented our top floor for 600 a month. Purchasing a building wasnt even an idea or endeavor. Today with the conditions that are in play now, as been expressed by the mayor and supervisor are very vital that we protect through acquisition, not only buildings for the Arts Organization but the residents who live here. Yeah, thats what i want to say actually. When i moved here, my mentor was richard from the theatre. There were only seven arts groups. The Community Arts program was one. On one hand i can count the active arts group. Today there are over 30 arts group throughout Central Market and the hundreds of artist who are here and that make work and struggle to live here and make work through their domiciles. I look forward to the language that you expressed that so very well for that kind of support. The way we can partner with the it community. I think they were here, they were attracted to the language of the emerging arts district. Its real. I think that its on us to sort of pave that way for their integration and support and securing sustainability of arts in the tenderloin and Central Market. Thank you very much. [ applause ] i want to give a big thanks, i want to do a couple big thanks and one is to my friend Alvin Padilla who showed up here 3 years ago and i have to say that hes been an inspiration to me and all of us have touched hands with alvin and the tenderloin Economic Development project. So, its all of us working together, the nonprofit housing group, the Arts Community, that we should be as our show is titled the whole pie. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you very much, joe. Before we bring up our final speaker, i want you to know the whole pie is a function of our people. I want to thank amy cohen, our staff from economic enforcement and to the San Francisco police department, especially captain for all the extraordinary work they do. To laurie from the luggage store. Laurie, at work and jackie from the hospitality house and director to ensure the programming is available here for folks. To mary from the california Community Loan fund and of course to the godmother of the arts Kerry Schulman and the San Francisco Arts Commission tom mccaneey. Now our final speaker, i would like to make sure we give a special shout out to you robin love who hands out a huge effort of accountability. Which will have its new home. Jessica, thank you. [ applause ] thank you so much to mayor lee, supervisor kim and the amazing folks at cast and clf and owe. Its an exciting thing for a grass roots oration to organization to get out of Central Market and building a new home. This builds community. What that means in practical terms is that we find dance and theatre artist whose voice havent been heard yet. We give them support and freedom to create new work and we form with grass roots and nonprofit to form that. We are only moving 5 blocks and that gives us a chance to partner with the tenderloin rich organizations. We are excited to be in this journey with the luggage. We are going to fund raise a Major Campaign to purchase a new home. We are looking for leaders of that campaign to share with the power of art. I recognize many of those leaders are here today. I see colleagues from the 950 project who will be our neighbors and Arts Partners and organizations and collaborators from the Tenderloin Community and sisters and brothers in social service and social justice. I see Building Owners who have the ethics and foresight to invest in our community and those seeking to positively impact their new neighborhood and of course the rain an San Francisco foundation who has been working on this issue for a very long time. Thank you all. [ applause ] as the other speaker said, this is a milestone and time for celebration but also just the beginning. We have a lot of work to be done. We have work to do as a community because counter post and the luggage are the two that need stability and we need to help our organization to be able to stay in this city. Its been quite a while to be here in this moment. I want to thank the staff. And our board who have each made a deep personal commitment to this project. Without their support, i wouldnt even consider doing this. We are only one organization, but we are part of a larger ecosystem. Thats why we have been in conversations over the last 9 months with neighborhood residents and businesses to think about how can we leverage the transition from one building to an entire community. We are building theatre and a cafe. We ask for your help with the physical transition but more than that, we invite you to be part of