{"id":59191,"date":"2025-11-21T11:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/59191\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T11:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:30:12","slug":"art-groups-find-affordable-studio-space-at-austin-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/59191\/","title":{"rendered":"Art groups find affordable studio space at Austin church"},"content":{"rendered":"

Light fills former classrooms on the campus of a historic church nestled between government buildings downtown. Stacked plastic chairs line the hallways, and old chalkboards adorn white walls. In one room, a window looks out toward orange tiles sloping down into a courtyard.<\/p>\n

By the end of the year, the rooms will be filled with actors rehearsing their lines, children learning to pli\u00e9, a photographer directing her subject to stand just so.<\/p>\n

“We’re gonna help them maintain this beautiful historic space and they’re gonna help the arts community access affordable space.”<\/p>\n

John Riedie, Austin Creative Alliance CEO<\/p>\n

Austin Creative Alliance is renting two floors in the building at 11th and Guadalupe from Central Christian Church. The nonprofit, formed in 1974 to support the city\u2019s arts community, is in turn subletting studio space to artists and cultural groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re gonna help them maintain this beautiful historic space, and they’re gonna help the arts community access affordable space,\u201d John Riedie, Austin Creative Alliance\u2019s CEO, said during a recent tour.<\/p>\n

The alliance lost its longtime East Austin home in May after the building was sold. The new owner raised rents to what Riedie called “unsustainable” levels, displacing nine artists and three nonprofits.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a familiar story: local creatives being pushed out because of sky-high rents. But unlike other nonprofit groups, Austin Creative Alliance was able to find a new space in just a few months \u2014 and for less money than it had been paying.<\/p>\n

\u2018Coincidental, serendipitous connection\u2019<\/p>\n

Fittingly, Austin Creative Alliance was connected to Central Christian Church through art.<\/p>\n

Pastor Layne Beamer had been an actor in California. He met Riedie a few years ago through a friend of a friend he had done plays with in the \u201990s. The two of them hit it off.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very just a coincidental, serendipitous connection,\u201d Riedie said.<\/p>\n

The two floors in the church building had been used by a performing arts school for about a decade. After the school closed shop three years ago, Central Christian rented it out to a real estate firm. Then it moved out, Beamer said, and the church had \u201ca blank slate.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Austin Creative Alliance was looking for a place to relocate, it reached out to see if the space was available. It was.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we walked with John and started talking about who might want what room, we really let go of the notion of what’s been and said, \u2018Well, what do the artists need?\u2019\u201d Beamer said.<\/p>\n

It was a puzzle figuring out who should go where based on lighting, room size and function. But the new tenants all had one need in common: affordable studio space.<\/p>\n

Untraditional spaces, untraditional rents<\/p>\n

Rent varies for each of the 13 studios in what\u2019s now called the Sanctuary. Riedie said it comes to around $3 per square foot per month \u2014 all utilities included. By comparison, space at another East Austin arts building \u2014 the Canopy \u2014 is around $30 a square foot.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone keeps saying there’s not enough housing in Austin. That’s not true; there’s not enough affordable housing in Austin. Same with creative space,\u201d Sharron Anderson, founding executive director of ATX Theatre, said. \u201cThere are lots of places where you can put on a concert or practice or whatever, but there are not a lot of places that people who make performances can afford to rent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nonprofit, which produces a weekly theater guide<\/a>, moved into a 660-square-foot former nursery room on the second floor this month. It\u2019s not your traditional space. The main door can\u2019t be locked, so others can access the fire escape. The door itself is sliced in half, allowing a toddler to be passed to a parent in the hallway, while keeping the other kids in.<\/p>\n

ATX Theatre will rent the space out for rehearsals.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can imagine all those cool, funky little garage band theaters, you know, that often rehearse in their backyard ’cause they can’t afford the expensive rehearsal spaces \u2014 they’re gonna be pretty excited to get a space for 10 dollars an hour instead of 25,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cHopefully that extra 15 bucks will go to pay actors or get nicer costumes or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson said she\u2019s excited to be part of the Sanctuary community.<\/p>\n

\u201cA dozen different creative brains crashing together in the hallway \u2014 that’s gonna be pretty fun,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Pastor<\/p>\n

Shunya Carroll<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

KUT News<\/p>\n

Pastor Layne Beamer says he hopes having creative groups on the campus will make the space more welcoming to people who have avoided church in the past. <\/p>\n

The building\u2019s new spirit<\/p>\n

Beamer said he’s glad the space is being used.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s alive in a way,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it’s been feeling a little neglected. And so I really do believe that if buildings and rooms have their own spirit, the building is happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beamer said the church has not always been a welcoming place and he wants to do \u201cdamage control for Jesus.\u201d He said he hopes Austin Creative Alliance\u2019s presence will help bring neighbors in to see what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best evangelism today is just letting people know you’re a Christian and not being a jerk,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so the opportunities to have people come in and out of here and have a pleasant experience and be supported and nurtured \u2014 the idea of sanctuary. \u2026 We’re really here to be a safe space for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Light fills former classrooms on the campus of a historic church nestled between government buildings downtown. Stacked plastic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[31879,16922,31876,132,31877,134,133,31878,31880,841,31881],"class_list":["post-59191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-affordable-studio-space","tag-artists","tag-atx-theatre","tag-austin","tag-austin-creative-alliance","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-central-christian-church","tag-creatives","tag-nonprofits","tag-rehearsal-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}