The Cal State Long Beach graduate arts campus may soon have a downtown extension with features like artists’ studios, group workspaces and a printmaking lab.
Long Beach’s Redevelopment Agency (RDA), which has been working with CSULB to build a graduate arts campus in downtown Long Beach, has set a March 15 deadline to submit a Request for Qualifications/Proposals.
Proposals will be considered to build a high-quality graduate arts campus with classrooms, studios, a printmaking lab, ceramics studio and student housing in the downtown arts district at the corner of Long Beach Boulevard and East Broadway, where there is currently a parking lot. The site is approximately 75,000 square feet.
The spaces would potentially be at street level with glass fronts, “allowing passersby a literal window into the creative and educational endeavors of a working community of artist-students,” according to the request.
“At this point, there is not a clear plan [for the construction of a graduate arts campus],” said Christopher Miles, chair of the department of art. “What we really have to wait for right now is to see who responds with an actual proposal and what the details are of that proposal.”
There have not been any proposals yet, but according to Barbi Clark, downtown development project manager with the RDA, most developers usually wait to submit proposals until the actual deadline.
She is anticipating that a few developers will submit proposals.
The Master of Studio Art program at CSULB has been growing in recent years.
There are currently 80 students enrolled in the program, and that number is expected to rise to 100-120 in the next few years, Miles said.
The current graduate student studio spaces are dispersed throughout the campus, so a concentration of studios in one place would help build a better graduate community, Miles said.
“We want better studios,” Miles said. “This would be an opportunity to get bigger and better studios all in one place. We are also looking for a scenario where student housing would be nearby so students would have the option of living there.”
Funding options are currently unavailable, since there is not a developer pursuing this project yet. However, Miles and Clark both said that this information would be available after a developer is chosen.
“We are not trying to do something here that’s going to cause a huge financial demand on the university,” Miles said.
He said the downtown location offers graduate students a more appropriate living situation.
“Space on campus is finite,” Miles said. “Getting it off campus and into downtown allows us to build a bridge with the city. An opportunity to increase our arts presence in downtown Long Beach would be a nice thing.”
Clark also described the location as a sort of linkage between different aspects of the city.
“Since it’s in the East Village Arts District, it’s a nice gateway to the downtown area,” she said.
While Miles said the idea has been discussed with the current graduate arts students, he said it is still very much an idea. He said that by the time something like this is built, all of the current graduate students would have already earned their degrees and moved on.
The site for the prospective graduate arts campus is adjacent to the Art Exchange, which is a project that is currently in the works.
The Art Exchange will feature artist studios, work spaces and exhibit spaces. Clark described it as a nice mesh with the proposed use of the campus.
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