Creativity hub finds home in Redwood City


In recent years, with increasing costs of living and operating, art galleries, theaters and performance spaces have become scarce, said Manske, who is also a steering committee member for the center. 

“We’ve had an exodus of the creative gene pool because of the high cost of operating here,” Manske said. “We plan to have a center that’s affordable for the residents and affordable for the arts organizations that need a place to do what they do.”

The goal of the center is to bring disparate groups in one place to collaborate and create together, said Jill Asher, a steering committee member. Artists of various mediums will be welcome to create and collaborate in the space.

“All of these art organizations are siloed, everyone’s working in their own space  with a strong desire to be amongst other artists and other art organizations to collaborate and offer programming,” Asher said. 

The effort to establish this space within the county was born in 2010, and has remained entirely volunteer led. 

“We all either do art or we just care really deeply about this community and understand the importance of art in our community,” said Ian Bain, a steering committee member and former Redwood City mayor. 

Volunteers, made up of artists, advocates and civic leaders, have since demonstrated the demand for an arts hub through community surveys and feasibility studies; 83% of adult respondents in a survey conducted by the steering committee said they felt an arts center would enhance life for the community. 

The Center for Creativity will focus on providing art classes for people of all ages, live events that would take advantage of the architecturally historical building, and an art gallery featuring local artists on its soon-to-be refurbished walls. 

While the center will pay those involved in operations and programming, all of the refurbishing of the hotel — which requires interior demolition, carpet cleaning and a significant paint job — is being done through donated materials and volunteered time.

“Our entire team are all volunteers, this has really been a labor of love of a lot of people,” Asher said.

The landmark hotel on the corner of Broadway and Main Street will one day become a boutique hotel again, but owners are waiting for prices to go down, Asher said. 

In the meantime, the volunteers responsible for the Center for Creativity will get to house their “proof of concept” for two years with the goal of garnering interest and establishing its place in the county for below-market-rate rent. One of the hotel owners, former Redwood City Mayor Dani Gasparini, sits on the steering committee for the center. 

Utilizing the hotel, which has been more-or-less vacant save for serving as transitional housing and one or two business tenants, is also a benefit to the city’s long-term goal of extending the impact of Broadway and stretching the downtown. 

Diagonally across Hotel Sequoia are approved plans for a significant upheaval of the former Wells Fargo and parking lot to become office space, housing and a plaza. 

“Our civic leaders recognize that activating this space here on the corner in this beautiful building is really going to reenergize this whole area,” Bain said. 

The Center for Creativity will look to address some of the same issues as the county, including loneliness and mental health, Manske said. 

“The arts provide solutions for those,” he said. “Not just through the work presented, but in the conversations that happen at those events and in the classrooms.”

While the center’s opening is slated for this spring, volunteers are still fundraising to sustainably keep the hub open for the two years. In just a month, the committee has raised $25,000, but ideally will need $350,000 to sustain the center’s operation for two years, Asher said.

“A lot of the funding is for staffing, and we really believe in paying artists, paying teachers, subsidizing classes,” Manske said. 

The long-term goal for the arts hub is to first find a permanent home, and then possibly open multiple locations of better accessibility throughout the county. For now, Redwood City will be its home.

Visit www.rwccfc.org for more information or to donate.

ana@smdailyjournal.com
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