I have written this essay to bring to the community’s attention the fact that Somerville is in danger of losing its largest arts organization due to a lack of urgency and mismanagement by city government.
The iconic Highland Avenue Armory building has been a landmark for more than 100 years. First used as a military headquarters and drill hall, then as an outlet for the Registry of Motor Vehicles, in 2004 it was repurposed by a developer, with huge support from the Somerville community, as a center for the arts.
What started out as a hopeful vision for the entire arts community soon ran into financial woes, not only for the developer, but for the Arts at the Armory nonprofit, its anchor tenant since 2008. Recognizing that the Arts at the Armory was an integral part of the Somerville arts scene and worth saving, in 2018 the Curtatone administration tasked his team and asked some Somerville folks to take a look at the management, financials and possible future strategies for not only the Arts at the Armory organization, but the building itself. I and a half-dozen interested arts community residents and businesses got to work as the Arts at the Armory Advisory Committee. And the findings weren’t good.
After months of deep diving into the workings of the building management and the Arts at the Armory organization, the conclusion was that the property owner and nonprofit business plans had failed. The property owner was also keenly aware of the failed business plan. They decided they would sell the property for development or lease to the highest bidder, dissolve their relationship with their tenant, Arts at the Armory, and get out. Once again, Curtatone and City Council at the time acted fast. The City of Somerville took the property by eminent domain in the spring of 2021 to save not only the building, but to keep alive the Arts at the Armory for the greater good (not to populate it with city offices and needs or most-favored tenants). Things looked a little brighter. The Arts at the Armory organization was moving fast as well, forming a board of directors, hiring a new executive director, reestablished its good standing as a nonprofit and beginning to generate revenue and develop a short- and long-term business plan.
The Arts at the Armory organization has made huge strides in the intervening years. The organization has more than tripled in budget size while growing efficient staffing and organizational structures and offering increasingly robust programming and services. Reaching 250,000 people through 750-plus events each year, it has become what the Somerville community envisioned all those years ago and then some: a stellar performance space, a function venue, smaller spaces for rent at affordable rates, a community gathering center and a funky cafe used and enjoyed by all walks of life in Somerville. Despite the two-year interruption caused by the Covid pandemic, it has managed to get enough funding to invest more than $550,000 into improvements to the main performance hall and cafe areas. The upgraded performance hall was nominated recently by the Boston Music Awards for best 250-plus-seat capacity live music venue (voting ends Nov. 22). But there is still a problem that threatens its future in Somerville: the building owner.
After a one-and-a-half-year period without a lease, the City of Somerville, the building owner, recently provided Arts at the Armory with a license agreement. The city has yet to countersign. The lease status of the other Armory tenants is also uncertain. Along with dramatic increases in rent, lack of building management or capital plan and lack of support by the city and the Somerville Arts Council, the lack of a lease document creates instability and potential revenue loss to tenants. Despite three and a half years of study, the city is again stating that the findings for a sustainable business plan are not yet ready for public consumption.
Meanwhile, the Arts at the Armory remains in limbo and is now considering relocating, perhaps even outside Somerville. That would be a tragic loss for all of Somerville, not just the arts community.
Something tells me that if the city cannot, with all its resources, even manage to produce a draft plan in more than three years, it should not consider running the business aspect of the Armory property in the future. Perhaps Arts at the Armory, an organization with a proven track record of success, is a much better choice.
Joe Lynch, Henderson Street, Somerville
Joe Lynch is former chair of the Arts at the Armory Advisory Committee.
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