September 16, 2006
Providence Business News
Firehouse 13 looks to make a profit

From the outside, Firehouse No. 13 looks as old and industrial as many of the 19th-century mills dotting Providence’s cityscape. Its windows, doors and brick walls look as they might have when it was a working fire station in 1856.
But on the inside, the building takes on a different form. An open space for art exhibits, theater and music occupies the first floor, where firefighters might once have stored a horse-drawn fire wagon. Artists’ living quarters replace those of firefighters on the second floor. And space for a commercial enterprise, such as a yoga or dance studio, occupies the third floor.
atop the old firehouse. The building is being redeveloped by artist Nick Bauta, who purchased it soon after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999. Bauta lived and worked there for about two years before moving his metalworking shop to The Steel Yard, a nonprofit collective for industrial arts, in which he has also invested time, money and energy.
He said he began envisioning how the Firehouse could “lend itself” to an arts community during the years he lived in the space. “I wanted to make it shine.”
And his vision for the space is as about as nontraditional that of The Steel Yard and fellow nonprofit AS220, with one major difference: Firehouse No. 13 aims to become a mission-driven for-profit, Bauta said, because “if the arts can’t make a living in this town, then we shouldn’t be here.”
Turning the three-story, 7,800-square-foot building – renovated for about $87 per square foot – into something that will pay for itself might prove to be challenging, he acknowledged. “It will be phenomenal if it breaks even the first year,” Bauta said.
A 20-percent cut of all art sales in the building will help. So will rent from the six resident artists, who will pay $400 to $550 per room (including utilities), and from the third-floor commercial tenant, said artist Anna Shapiro, director of the Firehouse. But even with that income, the Firehouse might not cover its operating costs.
“We need to sort of figure out where those profits will come from,” Shapiro said, adding that none of the administrators have had formal business training. “Being profit-driven is alien to us all.”
To add to its income, she said, the Firehouse might apply for a liquor license to sell wine and beer during events, such as exhibit openings and theatrical performances; it might charge a fee at the door; or it might sell gift shop items such as mugs and T-shirts.
Shapiro said she has already received 15 applications from artists seeking to live in the six furnished rooms on the second floor. The artists-in-residence will share such common areas as the kitchen, bathrooms and living room.
The Firehouse’s mission is to create affordable housing for artists and gallery space for their work, Bauta said – “to continue the affordable space that was taken away.”
Bauta said he has seen at least 1,000 artists forced from their live/work spaces in old mill buildings in the last six years. And he’s seen the affordable space dwindle, as developers turn those mills into condos and mixed- use developments. “All we have to hope for,” he said, is that the new residents of the high-end condos will outfit their places with works by local artists.
“I don’t want to live in a city with no artists,” he said. “It takes away the drive.”
The first floor of the Firehouse is designed as exhibit space. And, although the building’s plans include no artists’ work space, Shapiro said there has been some talk of the second-floor residents pooling their resources and staging fundraisers so they could rent the 1,250 square feet of commercial space on the third floor.
Unlike at other artist live/work developments, Shapiro added, such as Monohasset Mills (where Bauta lives now), the artists living at Firehouse will be expected to take part in decisions about what happens on the first floor. For instance, the second floor might be responsible for marketing and promotion of the first floor’s monthly rotating exhibits, which currently are juried by Bauta and Shapiro.
“We would like the renters to be the programmers,” she said. “We would like them to be the stewards of that ship.”
The Firehouse would definitely have a “more collective feel” than similar venues, such as AS220, which houses 19 live/work studios, she said. And, unlike that community arts center, it would not have music or other performances every night of the week.
Still, the Firehouse No. 13 community has received input and inspiration from AS220, Shapiro said, and also has received support from the Providence Department of Art, Culture & Tourism.
The department’s director, Lynne McCormack, said her staff has helped guide the Firehouse through some regulatory and permitting processes, because such projects “are important to the city.”
“They took an abandoned property and turned it into something that’s valuable and useful,” she said. “In terms of meaning to the art community, it’s another venue for artists to utilize, to show their work.
“I’m interested in seeing this model of a for-profit business supporting individual artists and other nonprofits. That’s an approach not taken in the city.”
Firehouse No. 13 also fills a need for artist housing, McCormack said, which is critical to the region’s creative economy, and it has a positive impact on neighborhoods. Shapiro said the Firehouse – in South Providence, near Central High School – hopes to get attract feedback and attendance from the surrounding community.
Full operations will have to wait, however, as the facilities await city inspection and approval of their new fire sprinkler and alarm systems, which Shapiro and company hope will be completed in time for an upcoming performance of “The Bald Soprano,” a play by Eugène Ionesco.
Tim Rubel, artistic director of Theatre Expansion, the Providence theater company that is staging the production, said five performances are slated for Sept. 28 through Oct. 1. Theatre Expansion chose the Firehouse for its debut of the play after attending an open house art exhibit in June.
Rubel said he “fell in love” with the first-floor space, because it lends itself to experimental seating. The audience for “The Bald Soprano,” for example, will be ranged in a circle around the actors.
He said he also likes the idea of a place where visual art can also be space for performances, though a lot of theaters and galleries are not open to the idea. “I think it’s really great,” Rubel said of the Firehouse’s concept. “The West Side needs a place like that. There’s so much diversity in that area. There’s so much art happening. But there hasn’t really been an outlet for it.”

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