Resolution _________________

A RESOLUTION creating an Arts & Cultural Districts program and implementation plan for Seattle, and designating Capitol Hill's Pike/Pine/12th Avenue neighborhood as the first officially-recognized Arts & Cultural District.

WHEREAS, Resolution 31155 accepted recommendations from the Cultural Overlay District Advisory Committee that called for designated districts that preserve and enhance space for arts and culture; and

WHEREAS, Seattle's Comprehensive Plan encourages "the creation of cultural districts to support arts and cultural uses and the economic benefits they provide," and encourages the City to "allow regulations and incentives to be adopted specifically for designated cultural districts," and to "allow adopted guidelines or regulations to modify, exempt, or supersede the standards of the underlying zone to encourage arts and cultural uses"; and

WHEREAS, the Arts & Economic Prosperity IV study reported that Seattle's nonprofit arts and culture industry generated $448 million in annual economic activity, 10,807 full-time equivalent jobs, $248 million in household income, and $38 million in local and state government revenues; and

WHEREAS, artsand entertainment-related businesses and organizations add cultural and economic diversity to a city; enhance the lives of the city's residents and visitors and positively impact the city's economy by generating jobs and revenue; and

WHEREAS, arts-dense neighborhoods in Seattle are already home to art galleries, studios, theaters, and restaurants; and art, music and culturally-oriented community events; and the City wishes to recognize and protect these naturallyoccurring areas from the displacement that new development often brings; and

WHEREAS, a program of Arts & Cultural Districts would recognize Seattle's various cultural identities, support existing arts-and entertainment-oriented businesses and encourage new arts and entertainment businesses to locate in Seattle; and

WHEREAS, Capitol Hill is home to one of our state's most exciting, most dense, and most active arts, culture, and nightlife centers; and

WHEREAS, the City encourages developing arts and cultural uses in Capitol Hill's Pike/Pine Conservation Overlay District through zoning incentives for providing arts facilities and theater spaces; and

WHEREAS, arts and neighborhood partners such as Capitol Hill Housing, the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce, Annex Theatre, Velocity Dance Center, The Northwest Film Forum, Hugo House, the Seattle International Film Festival, Seattle University, Black Box Operations, and many others have come together to celebrate and protect the character of their neighborhood; and

WHEREAS, arts organizations on Capitol Hill, a neighborhood experiencing rapid change and gentrification, are increasingly threatened with displacement due to rising rents and redevelopment; and

WHEREAS, while the Arts & Cultural Districts program will be initially rolled out in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, it is recognized that the program will also be applied in other City neighborhoods; and

WHEREAS, it will be crucial to the long term success of the Arts & Cultural Districts program that it use an equity lens to ensure that all Seattle residents can preserve the cultural activity that strengthens their communities;

NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SEATTLE, THE MAYOR CONCURRING, THAT:

Section 1. By this Resolution, the City of Seattle establishes a city-wide program of creating and maintaining Arts & Cultural Districts, and approves the implementation plan for the program that is attached to this Resolution as Attachment A. The Office of Arts & Culture shall oversee the execution of the implementation plan.

Section 2. The City of Seattle encourages City department staff to actively support and work with staff in the Office of Arts & Culture to develop and maintain the Arts & Cultural Districts program, and to support the health and vitality of the creative businesses and artists residing in the Districts.

Section 3. The City of Seattle encourages all residents of the City, and especially those who own property or businesses within Arts & Cultural Districts, to help support, promote, and maintain arts organizations and arts activities within the Districts.

Section 4. The City of Seattle establishes the neighborhood on Capitol Hill encompassing Pike and Pine Streets, intersecting with 12th Avenue, as the City's first officially designated Arts & Cultural District.

Adopted by the City Council the ____ day of ____________________, 2014, and signed by me in open session in authentication of its adoption this________ day

of ______________________, 2014.

_________________________________

President ___________of the City Council

THE MAYOR CONCURRING:

_________________________________

Edward B. Murray, Mayor

Filed by me this ____ day of ________________________, 2014.

____________________________________

Monica Martinez Simmons, City Clerk

(Seal)

Attachment A: Seattle Arts & Cultural District Program Implementation Plan

Matthew Richter / Frank Video OAC Arts & Cultural Districts RES November 6, 2014 Version #5

Attachment A Seattle Arts & Cultural Districts Program Implementation Plan

Background The Office of Arts & Culture (OAC) has for the past 18 months been developing a body of work to build upon Council Resolution 31155 that accepted the Cultural Overlay District Advisory Committee's (CODAC) June 2009 report. One of the report's top-level recommendations was to create a full-time Cultural Space Liaison staff position, tasked with stewarding the City's cultural space policy. That position was filled in June of 2013 and exists in OAC.

The CODAC report also recommended the creation of an Arts & Cultural Districts ("District" or "Districts") program. In 2014, the Office applied to the National Endowment for the Arts' Our Town program for funding to support a suite of tools to be applied in newly-formed Arts & Cultural Districts. Seattle was awarded $50,000 to develop and activate the tools listed below. The $50,000 will be matched internally from OAC's Cultural Facilities Fund budget, creating a $100,000 program of creative placemaking.

The Creative Placemaking Toolkit OAC, with other City departments and neighborhood and community partners, is creating a suite of tools for activating urban places with the arts (the "Toolkit"). These tools will be available to a series of newly-formed Districts. They are tools designed for supporting walkability, marketing, right-of-way improvements, way-finding, cultural preservation, and fostering an increased density of arts projects throughout the City. Ultimately, the Toolkit will support artists, art spaces, and neighborhoods.

Becoming a District The model envisioned for creating a District begins in the community. A lead community partner, a Business Improvement Area, Chamber of Commerce, local nonprofit, or community group, for example, would assemble a coalition of constituents and approach OAC's Arts & Cultural Districts program with a proposal for creating a new District.

Discussions and evaluations would follow including: a survey of existing arts and cultural resources in the community; conversations with the various partners; neighborhood outreach meetings; and a hypothetical modeling of how the Toolkit would be applied in a new District. This process would culminate in a formal application to OAC and a review by the Department's Director.

District Boundaries This program is not based on hard "dotted lines" on a map. There are not formal District boundaries envisioned. Instead, the image of the "heat map," where a core of density is recognized, leading to dissipation of density but without a hard ending boundary, is the model for defining the Districts. If "dotted lines" are needed for some reason pertaining to the Toolkit, the program will look to previously established boundaries such as pedestrian overlays or historic districts that might overlap.

The Toolkit The Toolkit includes programs, projects, and mechanisms to support the following:

* Right-of-Way District Identifiers: The program seeks a way to identify, market, and brand the Districts, and improve the visual landscape in the public right-ofway. In partnership with the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and Seattle City Light, a variety of mechanisms are planned for introduction in 2015: o Kiosks: Kiosks could provide assistance for marketing (poster walls) and way-finding (directories and pointers), serve as a space to showcase rotating 2-D artwork, function as gateways into Districts, and even provide demonstrations of solar power possibilities. o Pole Banners: Banners for individual arts organizations, for specific events, or the District could be hung from City-controlled light poles as permitted by the City's street use and sign codes. A series of banners could be commissioned that don't advertise anything at all, but are simply art insertions into the visual landscape. o Street Sign Caps: SDOT is interested in using the Districts as an opportunity to introduce street sign "caps" to announce neighborhoods, districts, and areas of historic interest. o Crosswalk painting: Replacing standard crosswalk bars painted on the roadway with arts-specific crosswalks (piano keys, for example) could help brand a District.

* Way-finding: How do you assist someone who might walk out of gallery A to know that theater X is just around the corner, or that galleries B, C and D are within walking distance? How do you connect the nodes of a District for the walking public? This program will assist in guiding the public from one art-space to another, or from one arts event to another, and may take the form of online mapping, or printed materials, or actual signage in the right-of-way, all of which would support a program of branding individual buildings and spaces as cultural space (another recommendation from the CODAC report).

* Busking & Plein Air Painting Support: The presence of street performers and open-air urban landscape painters reminds residents and visitors that a neighborhood is vibrant and arts-friendly. OAC would create a roster of performers of various disciplines, as well as painters, and support their presence in various Districts (ultimately seeding the presence of non-roster public artists as well).

* Art Historic Markers: Artists, art projects, and artspaces, once gone, are quickly forgotten. This program, in partnership with HistoryLink, would celebrate culturally-important spots with historic and educational markers. Playwright August Wilson wrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson while sitting in the old B&O Espresso coffee shop on Capitol Hill. The coffee shop has since been leveled to make way for a mixed-use development and Mr. Wilson has passed away. A marker, a plaque, with an online link, could keep some of the "erased" history of cultural neighborhoods from disappearing altogether.

* Pop-up Space Activations: In 2010, OAC launched the (now independent) Storefronts Seattle program of activating vacant storefront spaces with artists' projects. The program flourished and for a time activated spaces region-wide. The Districts program will bring the Storefronts program to specific neighborhoods to activate vacant storefronts spaces with temporary artist-driven projects, such as temporary installations, pop-up boutiques and galleries, and the incubation of new creative businesses.

* Parklets: In 2013, the City launched a pilot program of parklets, or tiny parks created in single parking spots in the right-of-way. The first two projects have succeeded in softening the streetscape, and providing a walkable resting spot. Repurposed as a tool for creative place-making, parklets could include public art components, incorporate a cross-promotion of Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park, and serve as arts public space in Districts.

* B.A.S.E. Certification: OAC is in the process of developing a new pilot certification for commercial and mixed-use developments, analogous to LEED environmental certification, but designed to reward projects that include cultural space. The Build ArtSpacE (B.A.S.E.) Certification program is exploring various ways to reward the inclusion of cultural space in new development with such things as marketing support, information about cultural neighborhoods and needs, and other assistance.

* Cultural Preservation and Landmarking: There is the very real possibility that the City could designate Districts only to spend the next decade watching the spaces that define them get displaced and redeveloped into commercial properties with no cultural component. Various mechanisms are being explored to support the preservation of older buildings and the innovative small local companies and arts organizations they tend to house.

* Additional Strategies: In addition to the implementation of the Toolkit described above, the City is committed to identifying long-range strategies for the ongoing economic benefit, preservation, operation, and maintenance of culturallyand artistically-active venues; including but not limited to: o Assisting District arts and culture venue owners and lease-holders in identifying City, county, state, and federal funding opportunities for improving and preserving their venues; o Supporting District arts and cultural venues in conversations with corporate, private, and foundation funding where the City can be an advocate; o Assisting District arts and cultural property owners and lease holders in exploring energy efficiency tools to maintain the integrity of their venues while also becoming more sustainable in the consumption of energy; o Reviewing the City's zoning, financing, Percent for Art program, development incentives, and other policies for opportunities to support the operations, renovations, or expansions of arts and cultural facilities in Districts; o Helping to identify marketing or incentive programs related to cultural tourism that bring more people into Districts; and o Considering the creation of an 'Arts Districts Day' that the City could help promote through existing communication means and materials.

Additionally, the City is committed to identifying organizational structures that benefit the District's non-profit organizations and individuals who act as stewards of arts and cultural activities that contribute to the economic vitality of Seattle: o Assisting District stakeholders in exploring formal structures that might be available for use by District stakeholders to generate funding for the maintenance, operation, and preservation of the district (e.g. Public Facilities District, Business Improvement Area, Public Development Authority); o Identifying opportunities to partner with City, county, state, and federal governments, the Seattle Convention and Visitor Bureau, Chambers of Commerce, and other civic stakeholders on marketing programs that will attract local, regional, and out-of-state visitors to the District; o Assisting Districts in identifying other strategic City, county, state-wide, or federal partnerships; and o Including Districts in economic development conversations, proposals, and City initiatives.

Finally, the City is committed to identifying marketing opportunities consistent with City regulations that support cultural tourism for the City of Seattle, Districts, and other businesses who benefit from the vitality of Districts; including but not limited to: o Increasing the street presence of District arts and cultural venues; o Placing District arts and cultural venues on the City's website; and o Using District arts and cultural venues for City meetings to highlight their cultural assets.

2

Matthew Richter

OAC Arts & Cultural Districts RES ATT A

November 6, 2014

Version #5

Randy Engstrom, Director | Ed Murray, Mayor

Street Address: 700 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1766, Seattle, WA 98104 Mailing Address: PO Box 98124-4748 Tel: (206) 684-7171 Fax: (206) 684-7172 arts.culture@seattle.gov www.seattle.gov/arts