MISSION
The purpose of Midway Artist Collective Inc. is to cultivate and preserve, in perpetuity, Midway Artist Studios as an affordable artist work-live building and a vibrant cultural institution and cornerstone in the greater Boston arts community.
Through the proximity of artists practicing a wide range of disciplines, new collaborations, learning, ideas, and opportunities can be generated. Midway is where performers, filmmakers, musicians, painters, writers, sculptors, photographers, poets, ceramicists, jewelers, illustrators, dancers, and many others, can make and share their work.
The rental model allows emerging artists a place to stay and work in Boston, and artists from around the world to come and work in Boston. It encourages the free flow of ideas between disciplines and generations.
In 2014, the artists organized to purchase the building, making it a permanent rental artist-controlled building, run by a board of directors, elected in part by the artist residents themselves.
Resident Elected Board of Directors: Jacob Higginbottom – Kristen Mallia – Christina Pazzanese – Raber Umphenour
A CULTURAL INSTITUTION
Maintaining an affordable rental work-live space for artists in Boston. Midway Artist Studios provides work-live studios for artists with Artist Housing Certification. Midway includes36 income-qualified studios, and 53 market-rate studios where rents are set under our nonprofit model.
This model allows artists at all income levels to focus on creating their art without the fear of displacement due to rising rents and creates a dynamic population of artists at all stages of their careers.
As the largest work-live artist rental building in Boston and the last remaining rental work-live building in Fort Point, we are a member of a broader cultural ecosystem both in the City and the region.
In addition to the work-live units on the upper floors, the ground floor is home to the gallery, cultural partners and venues and studios that are available for use by the community.
HOW WE PURCHASED MIDWAY ARTIST STUDIOS
In 2005, Midway Artist Studios was redeveloped from an abandoned wool warehouse to an approximately 200,000 square foot property containing 89 work-live artist studios and arts-related ground floor commercial space. In 2014, the building was put up for sale and the future of its arts mission was in jeopardy. Throughout Fort Point, many similar artist work-live buildings were being sold and flipped into luxury condos, displacing artists.
To secure its future, a group of resident artists organized to purchase Midway Artist Studios. In doing so, the resident artists created a permanent, not-for-profit, artist-controlled building, and established the foundation for a cultural institution to support current artists and future generations, and to be an active member of the greater Boston arts scene.
To accomplish this, the resident artists created a non-profit corporation, Midway Artists Collective, Inc. (MAC) as the property ownership entity. The successful purchase was directed by resident elected artist representatives in cooperation with the City of Boston and New Atlantic Development.
The bid submitted by Midway Artist Collective, Inc. faced competition from multiple commercial developers due to the prime location of Midway Artist Studios in Boston’s hot real estate market. The bid relied on resident funding to secure additional subordinate loans, accomplished in three stages. First, the resident elected representatives organized a campaign to gauge interest, quickly securing substantial pledges from the residents. Following this, they implemented a fundraising strategy to raise the necessary funds within a short period, ultimately exceeding their initial commitment and securing the required subordinate financing from the resident artists.
Buying the building was more than a real estate transaction. It was intended to preserve the unique contribution of a community of artists in the Fort Point neighborhood in particular, and the City of Boston in general. It is the goal of Midway Artist Collective, Inc. that Midway Artist Studios be operated as an affordable, artist-controlled work-live rental property for artists in perpetuity and not be sold.
There have been many accomplishments, all but inevitable, over the past decade that Midway Artist Collective has owned Midway Artist Studios, including;
Since 2014;
ESTABLISHMENT OF MIDWAY ARTIST COLLECTIVE ● the establishment of the unique non-profit ownership model of the Midway Artist Collective, purchasing the building in competition with competing bids ● securing funds through a broad and diverse capital stack with direct resident investment and governance ● making permanent the artist housing certification of all 89 work-lives studios in perpetuity, these provisions were set to evaporate collapsing the community and purpose of the building ● establishment of the permanence of the 36 income qualified affordable units associated with the building which were also set to expire
● SUSTAINING AFFORDABILITY● establishing within the financial structure of the building binding mechanisms to raise rents only to the extent necessary to support responsible operations of the building ● creating an investment fund for residents to invest in the property, and receive an return on that investment paid as an annual subordinate notes creating greater ecnomic value for residents under a new ownership model ● correcting the vast disparity between rents when the building was purchased; the equalization of the rents without rent spikes ● secured flexibility for income-qualified studios preventing artists from needing to relocate to other studios
● EXPANDING PARTICIPATION ● expanded voting rights for the election of the MAC Board of Directors, allowing each resident listed on a lease to vote as an individual ● creating a board of directors and a cultural instituation with direct resident participation on the board of directors ● creation a resident-elected arts council, The Arts Group (TAG), solely focused on the arts mission of Midway Artist Studios; to cultivate arts and culture in support of the mission of Midway Artist Studios ● renewing a governance structure with both artist representatives elected directly on the ownership board, and independent outside appointed directors appointed representatives
● CONVERTING THE GROUND FLOOR TO CULTURAL SPACE ● expansion of Midway’s ground floor exhibition and gallery space to four times its original size ● fully funding the ground floor gallery space ● the establishment of the Midway Production & Performance LAB, a space where artists throughout the city can access affordable studio space ● the opening of the Cultural Equity Incubator a collective action shared workspace designed by and for arts and culture leaders committed to intersectional racial equity and creative justice ● bringing Boston Lyric Opera to Midway Artist Studios ● the establishment of the Midway-Lyric Room for performing arts and rehearsal space ● the creation of an Arts Operations staff at Midway to operate the day-to-day of the cultural mission ● creation of the Opera & Community Studios, a 14,640 sq ft production and performance rehearsal facility in partnership with Boston Lyric Opera
● GROWING THE ARTS NEIGHBORHOOD ● the creation of a slate of public programming on Channel Center ● the successful establishment of Fort Point as a City of Boston Arts Neighborhood, in partnership with other important cultural organizations
● FINANCIAL STABILITY ● successfully returning all subordinate loans to investors.