Hey, there! Log in / Register
Green Street Studios in Central Square to shut down; blames unsustainable rent increases
By adamg on Wed, 10/02/2019 - 6:20pm
Green Street Studios of Central Square announced today it's closing for good on Oct. 27, after 28 years of providing dance and theater classes and performances.
Green Street Studios is thriving both artistically and financially. Following a turn-around initiated in 2016, exponential growth has continued under current leadership. Despite this success, GSS cannot sustain a significant rent increase brought by new ownership of the building. Tragically, the increase reflects the prohibitive cost to operate in the Central Square Cultural Arts District and broader Cambridge.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Poor Cambridge
Spike wtf does Cambridge have to do with Boston?
You've never been across the river?
In another universe, Boston would extend to at least 128, if not 495, but it doesn't, and Boston is pretty small compared to its metropolitan area so, yeah, I do write occasionally about things that happen north of the Charles and south of the Neponset.
Arts as community preservation
This is a case where taking a building by eminent domain and leasing it back to an arts group would make legal and moral sense.
Crazy
Why would any owner of a building rent to a place like this ever again, if this was to happen.
It hardly matters now
Look, developers already aren't renting to community groups. Have you noticed how many empty storefronts there are, particularly for newly constructed residential buildings? Developers are scumbags who hold out for only low-risk national firms. (Starbucks, CVS, etc.) If you're a small, local store it's already extremely hard to find space and this won't change things one way or another.
For Cambridge to throw their weight around isn't going to hurt anyone. Best case is the developer gets the hint and keeps the rent as-is as a way of playing nice with the city.
Why would a developer
Why would a developer/landlord want to take a risk leasing a brand new empty clean slate tenant space to a small company that might fail in 3 months and then have to attempt to lease the space to someone else with the added demolition costs to refit the space?
The developer/landlord wants to ink a long term lease with a business that is guaranteed to pay for the term of the lease so they can make their money back on the development or pay off the mortgage they took out to buy the brand new property.
You don't have to care about
You don't have to care about small, unique businesses. You can shop at chain stores all day long and feel you have a totally fulfilled life.
That's fine. That's your preference.
But that preference doesn't reflect the whole Central Sq. community. We can't very well say your preference matters and no one else's does. So the need to maintain non-chain businesses is a relevant factor which you don't seem to have worked into your argument yet.
That's not what's happening
These developers would rather keep a storefront empty for years than take the risk they might be "loosing" however much they would have made had they held out.
So when they set the rent they pick a figure which is above the current market price. If some sucker (like a bank) bites, awesome for them. But if they can't find someone willing to pay a high premium, no biggie, they just write it off as a loss and keep waiting.
It's like a fisherman who isn't hungry so he throws back every fish until he catches one large enough to hang on the wall.
Cambridge (and Massachusetts) needs to change the tax laws so that vacant retail space is expensive to keep empty. That will help communities.
It's not that simple
It is actually quite expensive to keep a retail space vacant. And a tax writeoff isn't money coming in, it's just taxes you don't pay on money that you lost. It isn't an incentive to keep spaces vacant, just something to soften the blow. As I understand it, the problem is often with the underwriting. Developers that have to take investor money to fund their projects (which is most of them), but especially small-time developers, often don't have the freedom to rent to just anyone. Underwriters usually require that tenants have a certain level of financial stability. On top of that, neighbors tend to ask for large retail spaces ("I want a Trader Joe's!"/"I don't want more bodegas/check-cashing places!") but small, experimental businesses tend to only be able to afford small ones.
Why Encourage Small Business Growth?
We can already get everything on Amazon, right? And if you want some kind of diversion like art or something - There's Netflix. And Jobs . . Amazon is always hiring.
Passages of Cambridge culture
If you talk with anyone interested in or who participated in dance or any of the arts programs,this is as sad as hearing about the closing of the Coop,the Harvest, the small neighborhood coffee shops and ale houses.
Keep Cambridge the niche it is known for that contributes to neighborhood socialization.
Arts/Dance
Can't they just do all that stuff at the local library?
Is there a space available in
Is there a space available in the library that is suitable for dancing?
Local dance groups got the city to include a dance hall in the West Cambridge youth/community center. But then the city imposed so much expense and bureaucracy that the groups gave up and moved elsewhere.
Not really, no.
A public library is for borrowing books to read, not really for the arts and dance performance.
Given the choice...
...between using Cambridge's consistently huge per-capita tax revenues to fund arts organizations and affordable housing or just giving it back to homeowners as a giant, annual tax credit, the city of Cambridge has consistently voted to do the latter. They have only themselves to blame.
you
have to push back. you have to.
Fomenting discord is a good
Fomenting discord is a good way to drive up maintenance and construction costs.
The broken windows approach.
They are asking for them
The cameras go first.
They'd better go on a PRONUNCIATION campaign to support the arts in Cambridge.
Cambridge
Used to be a place to escape the commercial dullness of Boston. It was truly a place to behold when I was a wee lad. Lots of funk, flavor, wonder, quirk, music, arts.......
My face would light up in my early teens just crossing the longfellow on the train.
Now.... Who cares?