Curtain to fall on a Somerville art space?

MAPC, Mass GIS Project photo
The front of the arts building at 438 Somerville Ave.

By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe Correspondent

ArtBeat, ArtsUnion, the What the Fluff? Festival, the HONK! Festival. In Somerville, it’s impossible to miss the arts scene. At neighborhood planning meetings, advocates discuss ways to keep artists in the city as economic progress threatens to price them out. We don’t want to be another SoHo, people say.

But on Monday, Sept.21, an art space is slated to go on the block, a sign of how hard it is to follow through on good resolutions.

The warehouse at 438 Somerville Avenue - between a railway, a cemetery, an auto body shop, and a supermarket - teems with life. Its visual artists participate in Somerville Open Studios and its musicians fill clubs around town.

It started life in the mid-1800s as part of the American Tube Works copper factory. The Weisman family bought the building in the 1950s and turned it into artist space 30 years later, said Elinor Weisman.

It is “dirt cheap,” said Gregory Jenkins, head of the Somerville Arts Council. “That’s why they’re in there.”

In particular, “there’s not a lot of places for musicians” to practice in Somerville, Jenkins said. “That would be a big loss.”

Singer-songwriter Audrey Ryan certainly thought so. “It would be tragic if I had to give up my space,” she said, sitting amid couches, an upright piano, a drum kit, and tattered Persian rugs. “It’s a huge part of why I’ve stayed in Boston.” The sounds of the electronica/DJ collective Compound 440R drifted up through the floor.

She sublets to several bands to cover the cost. About once a month she hosts small shows; a documentary about that will screen at the Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church on Oct. 17. (Ryan said she didn’t throw a party that drew the police last year.)

“The space is awesome,” said artist Arthur Henderson, gesturing at plastic sheeting and a sculpted toilet plunger. “There’s a heater that works, there’s windows that ... mostly work.” Since arriving last year, he and his two studio-mates have built out the room to meet their needs and plan to do more, if they can stay.

That’s the question. And it’s not even clear who can answer it: The tenants weren’t sure who currently owns the building. According to public records, the Weisman family sold 438 to a limited liability corporation in 2004 with no bank involved. This summer, with the buyers in arrears, Weisman took back control and put the building up for auction. That auction has been postponed twice.

Boris Koski, a clown, tenant, and former building manager, said that one owner - Cambridge real estate mogul Raymond Bandar- bought out his partners last year and is trying to reach a deal with Weisman. Which may have happened: Elinor Weisman said that “the note and the mortgage have been sold to an undisclosed buyer” earlier this week. However, the auction’s still on. Neither Bandar nor Weisman’s lawyer Christopher Vaccaro responded to requests for information.

No matter who’s in charge, the financial picture isn’t pretty. The building is about 40 percent vacant; the largest tenant, a boxing club, left over a year ago. Koski, who collected the rent checks until two months ago, said proceeds were $6,000 to 8,000 per month. Last month, Bandar announced rent increases.

And the space needs work. Said Jenkins, bluntly, “It’s a wreck.” (Making lemonade out of lemons, the tenants held a haunted house last Halloween.)

Mayoral spokesman Tom Champion implied that the city could have shut it down already. “We want to work with whoever is going to be in control of this property to work out an appropriate use,” he said. “There are clearly building code and structural issues.”

As for redevelopment, options are limited. The city’s Historic Preservation Commission would likely put up barriers to tearing it down, executive director J. Brandon Wilson wrote in an e-mail. Because the building’s in an industrial zone, owners can create artist housing but not ordinary condos. Several years ago, the city denied a request from the current owners to do that.

(In fact, the denial led to a push to tighten the rules, Jenkins said. Now, developers of artist housing must work with the council to attract city-certified artists.)

In this bind, well-intentioned artists and officials don’t have much power. Koski brought a check to the Sept. 11 auction, which was called off at the last minute, but doubted he could outbid investors. Ryan tried to organize tenants to buy the building but none could come up with much.

“There were tons of vultures” that day, she said, people who had heard about Somerville’s promising future and hoped to flip the place. If that happens, “It would kind of break my heart.”

The city can’t buy the building, Jenkins said: “I hope it stays in the arts community. [But] it’s kind of up to the owners.” He added, paradoxically optimistic, “Given this economy, it may just end up staying the way that it is.”

The original owners have washed their hands. “I liked it being artist studios. I sort of hope that it does [continue]. But it really can’t concern us anymore,” Weisman said.

For more coverage of Somerville, go to boston.com/somerville. You can contact Danielle at somervillescene@gmail.com.