The Roosevelt Row sector in downtown Phoenix has sustained itself for multiple decades, undergoing a variety of transformations and further expected growth. Now, at least one organization in Seattle is looking to receive advice from people from Roosevelt Row to create a new arts district in their city.
Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation board vice president Greg Esser spoke about how Phoenix has preserved and promoted its arts district at the ninth annual Capitol Hill Housing Community Forum in Seattle on Tuesday, May 20.
Capitol Hill Housing, an organization that specializes in affordable housing in Seattle, hosts an annual community forum with a different topic every year. The 2014 forum focused on creating an arts district within the Capitol Hill district in Seattle.
Esser, who met the Capitol Hill Housing Foundation executive director at an ArtPlace conference in Los Angeles, spoke about the policy tools Phoenix used to establish and preserve an arts district in the heart of downtown.
“In terms of policy tools, Phoenix has really developed a unique tool kit of policy for other cities to learn from,” Esser said. “That’s something for Phoenix to be proud of.”
Esser said artists can attract business and development to areas of cities where they reside. However, oftentimes as cities develop and prices escalate, artists are displaced from the areas they helped develop. He said he wanted to share how Phoenix had developed policies to protect and enhance the arts district and preserve the role of the arts.
Esser said some of the policy tools Phoenix has developed, including the adaptive reuse program and support of the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture, are what helped develop Roosevelt Row and gain recognition by other cities.
Michael Seiwerath, the executive director of the Capitol Hill Housing Foundation, said the obstacles Seattle and Phoenix face when it comes to protecting the arts are different, but said the examples and advice Esser gave was useful, nonetheless.
“Phoenix and Capitol Hill, Seattle have some pretty different challenges. We have a pretty dense neighborhood,” Seiwerath said. “But it was good to have the perspective of a community-development organization that has been around for 15 years and has an arts district.”
Lesley Bain, a panelist at the forum who has visited Roosevelt Row, expressed a similar sentiment. She said Esser’s presentation highlighted many of the actions Roosevelt Row has taken to preserve the arts that the Capitol Hill district could learn from.
“I think branding the place, if people know it’s the arts district, they’ll go,” Bain said.
“I never would’ve found (Roosevelt Row) if you hadn’t called it an arts district and the transit stop said ‘arts district,’” she said. “I think that’s something Seattle can definitely learn from and I think Greg reinforced the need to actually name it and designate it as a district.”
Bain said although Capitol Hill is a very dense area and Phoenix has more vacant lots, the need for an area where artists can gather, work and present — like Roosevelt Row — is still present.
Esser has gone around and outside the country before to speak about Roosevelt Row and its initiatives. He traveled to Kosovo in spring of last year to help launch an event night similar to downtown’s First Friday called “Last Fridays.”
Although Esser was in Seattle to speak about downtown Phoenix’s accomplishments in establishing and preserving an arts district, he said the Capitol Hill Housing forum was mutually beneficial.
“Roosevelt Row is learning more about affordable housing from Capitol Hill Housing and Capitol Hill Housing is learning more about the establishment of an arts district and policy tools to help enhance that from Roosevelt Row,” he said.
Contact the reporter at kuntharasp@gmail.com
