Breaking WAV imminent

The first residents of PLACE's groundbreaking WAV (Working Artists Ventura) development (link to feature) are expected to move in this month (September) with full occupancy by the end of the year, according to PLACE executive director Chris Velasco.

The development will offer affordable live/work space for more than a hundred artists and will, says Velasco, be ‘the first green arts community in the world' - the community is aiming for the US Green Building Council's LEED silver award. The diverse mixed income $57m development in downtown Ventura, California, will offer live/work space to painters, dancers, sculptors, musicians, filmmakers and theatre workers among others, alongside performance space, galleries and cafes.

The project is a mixture of supportive housing, high-end market rate condominiums and units for artists with families, alongside arts-friendly businesses, with the local community involved at each stage of its development.

‘One of the ways that we try to make the impossible project possible is to look at the overlapping agendas inherent in a mixed use, mixed income project,' Velasco told Live/Work World. ‘There might be affordable housing money that can help make your project happen, or arts money, community development money, historic preservation money or environmental design money - all of these different pots that would be insufficient in themselves but not if you combine them. You can stitch them together into a proper financing instrument for a major project like this.'

Last month also saw the public turn out for a comedy variety show at the Ventura Improv Company Theatre to raise money for the WAV theatre/gallery.