Across our community, residents and leaders are looking for new ways to effect change, build infrastructure, create opportunities to advance the health of our region and bring more resources to local residents.
Right now, leaders in the arts are demonstrating that innovative thinking, a collaborative approach and the tenacity to forge new pathways can help us find solutions to some of our most pressing challenges.
One of the biggest obstacles to the ability of local residents and youth to access the arts is a real estate market that is not calibrated to serve the local community. Through collaborations and partnerships, local arts organizations are leveraging shared space models to deliver educational programs, family experiences, employment opportunities and economic impact in new arts and cultural facilities.
Arts organizations are taking control and driving real estate development projects that are blossoming in San Jose and beyond to activate dormant lots, empower local neighborhoods, create jobs and provide spaces for youth, families and residents to build community cohesion, honor cultural traditions and find solace and joy.
In spite of these challenges, last week we celebrated the announcement of two new local arts and cultural facility projects, which are made possible through community-based partnerships.
The new Shared Arts Center of San Jose at Sharks Way and Notre Dame Avenue is an example of a shared space model that SV Creates has long championed — for both its economic efficiency and for the exponential benefits of cross-arts group collaboration. The lead organization Starting Arts — in collaboration with core arts partners Cashion Legacy Cultural Legacy/Los Lupeños de San José, Silicon Valley Shakespeare, Playful People Productions and ArtHouse Studio — is turning two vacant buildings in downtown San Jose into a vibrant arts center, allowing arts groups to share resources and to promote artistic cross-pollination.
The project is only possible with the support of local builder Swenson, who in addition to being the landlord will provide significant in-kind contributions to ready the building for occupancy in spring 2026. The activation of this space will be a boost to San Jose’s effort to “stitch districts,” connecting two lively neighborhoods and bringing artists, families and cultural workers to a new hub for arts education, rehearsals and public arts activities.
In East San Jose, the School of Arts & Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza will transform a vacant building on Alum Rock Avenue into a community cultural hub, with help from a historic investment from the Knight Foundation, a longtime champion of arts and culture, and broad support from the local neighborhood and city.
Plans for the 28,000-square-foot commercial building include a small theater, affordable cafe and food pantry. The cultural hub’s renovations are slated for completion by the end of 2026, and will be a resource for dozens of cultural organizations and hundreds of artists who serve the Mayfair neighborhood and beyond. Local leaders and artists hope the area will be designated as La Avenida Cultural District, under a state program that recognizes neighborhoods with cultural significance.
These new facilities are a testament to what is possible when we uplift artists and creatives, and work together to imagine innovative models, such as Open San Jose, a downtown San Jose collaborative hub that serves as incubator for dialogue, storytelling and engagement. Open San Jose was founded by CreaTV, with multiple cultural and arts partners including Chopsticks Alley Art, Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley, LEAD Filipino, Mosaic America, NorCal Public Media and Works/San Jose.
In Gilroy this August, the new Casa de Cultura y Arte reopened the city’s historic Willey House as a home for artists and cultural practices. It will host a unique blend of performing arts workshops, wellness programming and community activations showcasing creatives from Gilroy, South County and beyond.
During the pandemic, the arts sustained us and were critical to our social fabric and our mental health. But the old business models of nonprofit arts organizations have struggled, not faring well in recovery, even as demand for the work of artists as storytellers, historians, community healers, social justice warriors and entertainers has increased.
So, I’m celebrating and embracing the ingenuity, resilience and even the ambition of arts and cultural leaders who are advancing new models, helping the arts to thrive in our community and providing more accessible, inclusive and collaborative spaces. I hope you will visit them, participate, support and celebrate with me.
Alexandra Urbanowski is CEO of SV Creates, the state and county designated arts service organization and local arts agency for Santa Clara County. She serves on the leadership committee for the California Coalition of County Art Agencies and as a board member at the School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza. Her columns appear every first Wednesday of the month. Contact Alexandra at [email protected].
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