Over the past decade, Totem Star has helped thousands of young artists develop their music in its 225-square-foot recording studio in West Seattle. Now, in a major upgrade, the nonprofit has built his 2,000-square-foot facility, this time in the heart of the city.
Totem Star is one of five organizations building a new home on the 11,100-square-foot second floor of Pioneer Square’s historic King Street Station. Dubbed Station Space, the project will provide space for cultural organizations, many of which are youth-focused. Other partner organizations are Red Eagle Soaring, The Rhapsody Project, Jackson Street Music Program, Whipsmart (an industry association and partner of Washington Filmworks), and the public development agency that organizes the project, the Agency for Cultural Affairs. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Thursday.
Station Space is the second arts and culture hub to house at King Street Station, after the Arts and Culture Office (ARTS) in 2019. ARTS’ third floor uses include a gallery space and a community ‘living room’. Open for the public to hang out. The City of Seattle bought the property in 2008 and renovated it in 2013, but for years these floors remained empty.
Totem Star executive director Daniel Pack said he hopes the Station Space project will promote the use of art and culture in an empty building in downtown Seattle.
“Being able to partner with the city, the Agency for Culture and Space, and all the other arts organizations there is proof of concept of what we can and will do for arts and culture,” he said. rice field.
Matthew Richter, interim executive director of the Agency for Culture and Space, said Station Space is still fundraising for construction, but has so far raised $2.3 million out of $3.5 million, making it the state’s Historic Landmark. He said he is collecting some of the larger donations from South Downtown. Created a community preservation agency. His 4Culture office in King County. The Vadon Foundation, which funds programming that helps indigenous communities. Construction is expected to begin around the New Year, and the current timeline for the project — designed by his SKL Architects in Seattle and built by Sellen Construction — is to cut the ribbon in late spring 2023.
The Cultural and Space Agency will lease the space from the city, and other station space organizations will, in effect, sublease it from the agency. The lease agreement is not yet final, but Richter said it will include the right for Station Space to lease the space for the next 60 years.
But no one will pay the rent. That’s because the city will lease the space rent-free in exchange for community benefits and the capital investment Station Space brings to the property, Richter said.
In 2010, musicians Pak and Thaddeus Turner founded Totem Star, a youth-focused record label and music education program in one. Totem Star serves over 300 students each year, and in the last 12 years he has served 4,800. According to Park, many of these students live far away and cannot make his recording studio in West Seattle a regular destination.
“We are sick and tired of seeing small cultural spaces popping up on the fringes of the city almost outside of our Seattle imprint. I’m tired of seeing that I have to take three buses an hour,” he said.
When Totem Star’s board of directors began talking about moving to a larger, more accessible space in 2018, then-ARTS Director Randy Engstrom suggested King Street Station. Later that year, Richter invited Red Eagle Soaring, a native youth performing arts nonprofit, to join the project, and in 2019, he also invited the Rhapsody Project, a music education nonprofit. Station Space will be Red Eagle Soaring’s first dedicated creative space. The Rhapsody Project currently rents space from other organizations.
Station spaces include a rehearsal and performance space, a Totem Star recording studio, a Red Eagle Soaring black box theater, a Rhapsody Project instrument workshop and instrument library, and a general gathering space available to the community.
Joe Seamons, who co-founded The Rhapsody Project in 2013, said: I am truly honored to be a part of this project. ”
With the motto “Keeping kids off the streets, studios and stages since 2010,” Totem Star is focused on fighting evictions for both the arts and Seattle’s youth. His three focal points for Pak are people, programs and places. It’s hard to get a place in an expensive city like Seattle. In 2015, citing an internal analysis conducted by ARTS, Park said that after all, just 6% of his art and cultural spaces in Seattle are owned by communities of color.
“We have a great program, but it only works if it has a place,” he said. “The whole meaning of this project is to give artists a place in this rapidly growing city.
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This indemnification is partially underwritten by the MJ Murdock Charitable Trust. The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over this and all its coverage.
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