95 King St. East | ? | 3 fl | Approved

[matt602]

"The City of Hamilton's decided it needs a place to house all its relocated Toronto artists"

Well, that article started rather pompously.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Originally Posted by matt602

"The City of Hamilton's decided it needs a place to house all its relocated Toronto artists"

Well, that article started rather pompously.

Indeed and ridiculously--as though all of Hamilton's artists were to be crammed into that three-storey building. Terrible article and the writer, Bert Archer, is inept, but I found it interesting that it even appeared in a Toronto mag at all (regardless of quality)>

[thistleclub]

New detail from the Yonge Street feature:

"The result is 12 lofts between 550 and 750 square feet, all with en suite laundry and high-grade finishes, for $800-$1,000 a month."


In April 2013, CHH was projecting apartment rents of $675/month, ostensibly fulfilling part of the org's mandate (the entirety of which is curiously redacted on its website):

Goal 3. Create Healthy, Secure Communities - Ensure that Hamilton residents have access to affordable housing opportunities and support initiatives that will enhance quality-of-life, increase client empowerment and decrease dependency.

[palace1]

http://www.thespec.com/news-story/43...a-music-twist/

Plan to bring artists to city core takes a music twist

By Saira Peesker

CityHousing Hamilton's project to bring artists to Gore Park is moving along steadily — if slowly — with a handful of its 12 apartments now occupied and programming in its gallery set to start this summer.

Tim Potocic, owner of Sonic Unyon Records and founder of Supercrawl, said he'll be running an event space with a bar at 95 King St. E. and has booked programming to start in July. The contract has yet to be signed, but CityHousing and Potocic are confident it will move forward.

Potocic plans to use the gallery as an early-evening concert venue, but will also host film screenings and book launches, as well as rent the space out to community groups.

"We're looking at things like jazz, quartets, chamber music and choirs … We don't want to compete with our friends."

He said he's already found arts-related tenants for three of the main-floor studios and may use the ones in the basement as rehearsal spaces. The fourth studio on the main floor will be removed to accommodate larger washrooms, at a cost of "well over $100,000" out of his pocket and a similar amount paid by the city. He will also be building a bar.

Bill Curran, whose firm TCA Architects redesigned the modern and airy space, said he'd be disappointed to see a studio lost.

"(Those are) newly-finished, high-quality two-storey studios with great daylight," he said. "I really think that the city's (initial) vision for the project — which was to be a hub for the arts community to have artists of all disciplines and ages meeting, working, living and cross-pollinating ideas — is really needed and a vital contribution to downtown."

In fact, a bar and concert venue wasn't the vision CityHousing was promoting at 95 King's launch in November, when the public got a look at the city's "live/work space" for artists after five years of planning and building. Potocic says he and the city have met somewhere in the middle.

"They were looking for more of an art gallery-style space," he said. "We will have paintings on the walls and art launches but it won't be open as a gallery with regular business hours. It will be open for events only."

CityHousing CEO Brenda Osborne said a contract with Potocic was close to completion. She said the city will be providing additional washrooms and making changes to the heating and cooling system, but added she wouldn't have a cost for those improvements until after the deal was signed.

The lease will be for five years with the option to extend it further, she said.

Renting to other cultural organizations and artist-related activities at a reasonable rate has been part of the negotiations.

"It was very important to find a tenant who had a successful track record in the community and was able to provide the cultural events we envisioned. Sonic Unyon's successes in the community around Art Crawl and other events was a factor."

At the fall launch, CityHousing manager Vimal Sarin said the building would be bustling by February at the latest.

Potocic's planswill add another six months to the lengthy process.

Ward 1 Councillor Brian McHattie, who is also the CityHousing board president, said in an email that he always wished "things happened quicker but being here for 10 years, all things city take time."

"This is a very exciting project and will be worth the wait."

Even after Potocic takes over on the ground floor and basement, CityHousing will continue to helm the housing units above. Three of them are occupied.

Members of the arts community have criticized the city for setting rents higher than many artists can afford. At the launch, the units were to rent for $800 to $850.

Osborne said in an email Wednesday the current selection criteria for tenants, put in place in November 2010, asks people to "describe the type of art form or culturally-related activities" they are professionally involved with. Applicants are also required to submit two professional references who are able to authenticate their work.

Special to The Hamilton Spectator

[thistleclub]

Via Facebook:

Hi there. We're happy to announce the pre-launch of Mills Hardware. It's a new arts and music space in Hamilton (yay!) with a special focus on local and community groups.

Mills Hardware has a 144 person capacity main room, complete with a stage, lighting, sound, projection, and a full service bar.

We also provide office space for Hamilton arts and community groups at reasonable rates. Both the Hamilton Fringe Festival and Centre Français are headquartered in our building.

In addition we have four rooms in the basement available for rent that are perfect for small group rehearsals (music or theatre), temporary artist studios, or any other arts related need.

The performance space can be used for art openings, book launches, live music performances, theatre, dance, readings, lectures, corporate meetings and functions, wedding receptions, yoga, and media events.

You'll find that Mills Hardware is a unique space in Hamilton. It's a beautiful room with exposed brick and soaring ceilings. Acoustic treatments will leave the room with a full and rich sound.

Mills Hardware is managed and booked by Sonic Unyon Records. You may know us from our indie record label, Supercrawl, Because Beer, Seven Sundays in Gage Park, and the Hamilton Blues & Roots Festival. If you don't know us from any of those then hello, it's a pleasure to meet you.

We'll be busy over the next couple of months putting the finishing touches together and bringing the room up to the standards that we'd expect of a space like this. If you have any questions about Mills Hardware or would like a tour, please email us at millshardwarehamilton [at] gmail.com.

[thistleclub]

Via @JoeyColeman:

.@cityofhamilton's new 95 King East artist space is now rented to @AndreaHorwath campaign. Its a sublet #YHMgov pic.twitter.com/BdbN203JXh

Raised my eyebrows to see @cityofhamilton multimillion dollar artist space rented to political party. A sublet, bad optics for City #YHMgov

[Dr Awesomesauce]

It does raise a Spockian eyebrow, to be sure.

[thistleclub]

Funny stuff.

Admittedly a sublet, but the perception of things being iffy is not helped by the board president (2003-2014) of CityHousing Hamilton’s support and political affinity with the ONDP. Would be curious to know what provisions the city puts in place in its lease arrangements regarding sublets. At one point, the ground floor commercial space was seen as capable of commanding around $5,050 a month in revenue.

[thistleclub]

NDP bails on controversial campaign office in downtown arts space
(Hamilton Spectator, Matthew Van Dongen, May 12 2014)

NDP leader Andrea Horwath has abandoned her downtown campaign office in an affordable artists' space after social housing officials said it shouldn't have been allowed there in the first place.

CityHousing Hamilton redeveloped the former strip club at 95 King St. E, a $3.5-million project, to provide affordable living and studio space for artists. The agency recently partnered with Sonic Unyon Records to market and sublet the studios and show space for arts events.

But politics soured the partnership Monday after social housing officials realized the NDP had sublet the Gore Park artists' space for the provincial election campaign.

An upset Sonic Unyon owner Tim Potocic said he was asked by CityHousing officials to "evict" the political party, a request he said he refused.

But local campaign official David Michor said Monday the NDP would move to avoid getting entangled in a "dispute" between Sonic Unyon and CityHousing.

"We innocently rented this place from Sonic Unyon. … We don't want to deal with the controversy," he said as he moved out boxes destined for a new office at 471 King St. W.

Reaction on Twitter questioned the optics of a political party setting up in a building owned by an arms-length city agency — particularly one purporting to offer affordable living and work space.

CityHousing head Brenda Osborne said Monday she only learned of the controversial sublet on Twitter and later told board members via email the agency wasn't involved in and "never contemplated" such a sublease.

In a brief phone interview, Osborne couldn't say if the sublease was actually against the rules, but added the agency "has never leased to a political party. We never would."

The NDP said in a statement it paid "full market rent" for the space, while Potocic said he charged a "reasonable rate." No one involved would say exactly what Sonic Unyon is paying in its rental agreement with the housing agency.

Read it in full here.

[markbarbera]

Wow, if they can be so blind to an obvious appearance of conflict of interest during a campaign, imagine what they would get up to if given the chance to form a government. This is the same party that flagrantly disregarded campaign advertising laws during the recent by-election in Niagara Falls. A couple examples of how it is Howarth's NDP that is now borrowing from the pages of McGuinty's shady dealings playbook. When Howarth claims that she couldn't support the Liberals anymore because of their alleged scandals (after happily doing so for years), most probably didn't realize it was because she would prefer to engage in her own questionable acts of shady politics.

I wonder if Sonic Unyon will ever actually reveal the sweetheart sublet deal they gave the NDP for what was supposed to be artist space in 95 King East. Which leads to the next question: should Sonic Unyon even be allowed to sublet this city-owned space? I would expect this to be stipulated within their own lease agreement with the city. If it wasn't, who dropped the ball here?

Exactly how much funding does Sonic Unyon get from the city to finance the annual Supercrawl? How much does the city charge Sonic Unyon to lease the space in 95 King East? How much did Sonic Unyon make subletting the space to the NDP? Will there be an audited financial statement publicly provided?

[mattgrande]

Originally Posted by markbarbera

Exactly how much funding does Sonic Unyon get from the city to finance the annual Supercrawl? How much does the city charge Sonic Unyon to lease the space in 95 King East? How much did Sonic Unyon make subletting the space to the NDP? Will there be an audited financial statement publicly provided?

I don't know about the other questions (and I'd love to know the answers), but to answer your first question, it looks like they requested $125,000 for 2013.

http://www.sachem.ca/news/carrot-and...ys-councillor/

(Compare to FoF, which requested $85,000)

[coalminecanary]

This seems a little blown out of proportion. If the space was given away, then it could be considered political support but if everyone was paying and receiving market value, then it's not like there was a subsidy...

That being said, Andrea Horwath has been a big disappointment in other way more meaningful ways. IMHO this is just not that big a deal.

[thistleclub]

95 King East lease arrangements were discussed during in camera sessions of CityHousing Hamilton’s Board of Directors on Nov 21 2013 and Dec 12 2013.

Councillors McHattie, Farr, Jackson, Duvall and Ferguson would all presumably have details on the lease arrangements.

In Apr 18 2013, a CHH report on 95 King East noted that “the exhibit space is conservatively estimated at $10,000.00 annually.” (The Coffee Culture space at 89 King East was projected to bring in almost twice that.)

[Jon Dalton]

Exactly how much funding does Sonic Unyon get from the city to finance the annual Supercrawl?

I'm told the amount of money they get is about equal to the amount they pay the city for policing and road closures, which increases every year. I believe it was in the neighbourhood of $50,000 last year. The $125,000 request was put off by council.

[thomax]

Delete

[thistleclub]

Retrofit of brand new artist building will cost city $200K
(CBC Hamilton, Adam Carter, June 26 2014)

The city is spending about $200,000 to retrofit a brand new community arts space in downtown Hamilton, even though it has never been used and was built to the city’s own original specifications.

Everything at the CityHousing Hamilton building at 95 King Street East is brand new, but crews will soon rip out parts of the bottom floor and start renovations for a new community performance and art space operated by Sonic Unyon Records that’s set to open in July.

The city-owned housing agency's adaptive reuse project was highly touted during its restoration — but the city couldn't find a tenant to run the bottom floor arts space before the original construction project was complete. Now it has a tenant, but they want an entirely different space — and that lack of focus in the planning stages has forced the city into the costly retrofit.

The additional costs were only ever discussed in closed-door, in-camera board meetings and never made public.


Choice asterisk, too.

Disclaimer: CBC Hamilton reporter Adam Carter lives in one of the apartment units above the artist space at 95 King Street East.


Read it in full here.

[markbarbera]

So, unless I am missing something, the city collects $10,000 annually from Sonic Unyon to rent the space, the city is spending $200,000 to renovate what they intended to be a gallery so that Sonic Unyon can hold concerts there instead of its original purpose, and the decision is made quietly behind closed doors.

In the good old days, CATCH would be all over this. Oddly enough, it is the old-school media breaking this story while the local "new" media keep strangely silent on the whole issue.

[durandy]

I don't see Don McLean around city hall as often. He looks to be concentrating his efforts on environmental issues.

[ScreamingViking]

Who is involved in CATCH anyway? The articles they post don't list authors (not that I've read everything they have done), and their site doesn't seem to mention anybody by name.

Just curious, because most other independent websites that provide Hamilton-related content, stories, and critique are more open about their editors and content providers.