Light fills former classrooms on the campus of a historic church nestled between government buildings downtown. Stacked plastic chairs line the hallways, and old chalkboards adorn white walls. In one room, a window looks out toward orange tiles sloping down into a courtyard.
By the end of the year, the rooms will be filled with actors rehearsing their lines, children learning to plié, a photographer directing her subject to stand just so.
"We're gonna help them maintain this beautiful historic space and they're gonna help the arts community access affordable space."John Riedie, Austin Creative Alliance CEO
Austin Creative Alliance is renting two floors in the building at 11th and Guadalupe from Central Christian Church. The nonprofit, formed in 1974 to support the city’s arts community, is in turn subletting studio space to artists and cultural groups.
“We're gonna help them maintain this beautiful historic space, and they're gonna help the arts community access affordable space,” John Riedie, Austin Creative Alliance’s CEO, said during a recent tour.
The alliance lost its longtime East Austin home in May after the building was sold. The new owner raised rents to what Riedie called "unsustainable" levels, displacing nine artists and three nonprofits.
It’s a familiar story: local creatives being pushed out because of sky-high rents. But unlike other nonprofit groups, Austin Creative Alliance was able to find a new space in just a few months — and for less money than it had been paying.
‘Coincidental, serendipitous connection’
Fittingly, Austin Creative Alliance was connected to Central Christian Church through art.
Pastor Layne Beamer had been an actor in California. He met Riedie a few years ago through a friend of a friend he had done plays with in the ’90s. The two of them hit it off.
“It was very just a coincidental, serendipitous connection,” Riedie said.
The two floors in the church building had been used by a performing arts school for about a decade. After the school closed shop three years ago, Central Christian rented it out to a real estate firm. Then it moved out, Beamer said, and the church had “a blank slate.”
When Austin Creative Alliance was looking for a place to relocate, it reached out to see if the space was available. It was.
“When we walked with John and started talking about who might want what room, we really let go of the notion of what's been and said, ‘Well, what do the artists need?’” Beamer said.
It was a puzzle figuring out who should go where based on lighting, room size and function. But the new tenants all had one need in common: affordable studio space.
Untraditional spaces, untraditional rents
Rent varies for each of the 13 studios in what’s now called the Sanctuary. Riedie said it comes to around $3 per square foot per month — all utilities included. By comparison, space at another East Austin arts building — the Canopy — is around $30 a square foot.
“Everyone keeps saying there's not enough housing in Austin. That's not true; there's not enough affordable housing in Austin. Same with creative space,” Sharron Anderson, founding executive director of ATX Theatre, said. “There are lots of places where you can put on a concert or practice or whatever, but there are not a lot of places that people who make performances can afford to rent.”
The nonprofit, which produces a weekly theater guide, moved into a 660-square-foot former nursery room on the second floor this month. It’s not your traditional space. The main door can’t be locked, so others can access the fire escape. The door itself is sliced in half, allowing a toddler to be passed to a parent in the hallway, while keeping the other kids in.
ATX Theatre will rent the space out for rehearsals.
“You can imagine all those cool, funky little garage band theaters, you know, that often rehearse in their backyard 'cause they can't afford the expensive rehearsal spaces — they're gonna be pretty excited to get a space for 10 dollars an hour instead of 25,” Anderson said. “Hopefully that extra 15 bucks will go to pay actors or get nicer costumes or something.”
Anderson said she’s excited to be part of the Sanctuary community.
“A dozen different creative brains crashing together in the hallway — that's gonna be pretty fun,” she said.
The building’s new spirit
Beamer said he's glad the space is being used.
“It's alive in a way,” he said. “I think it's been feeling a little neglected. And so I really do believe that if buildings and rooms have their own spirit, the building is happy.”
Beamer said the church has not always been a welcoming place and he wants to do “damage control for Jesus.” He said he hopes Austin Creative Alliance’s presence will help bring neighbors in to see what’s going on.
“The best evangelism today is just letting people know you're a Christian and not being a jerk,” he said. “And so the opportunities to have people come in and out of here and have a pleasant experience and be supported and nurtured — the idea of sanctuary. … We're really here to be a safe space for everybody.”
