As a jazz singer, Moy Eng is forever in search of an old brick room with industrial charm and solid acoustics. So when she walked into the vacant Dempster Printing Building on Minna Street, she burst into a scale of notes that rose up through the redwood rafters and lingered there.
Now Eng plans on turning the building into a small performance venue to be the main attraction in a four-story community arts hub that will open in late 2020 as part of the 5M mixed-use development behind the Chronicle building at Fifth and Mission streets.
Eng was the first to sing there because her day job is as executive director of the Community Arts Stabilization Trust, an independent nonprofit that addresses the challenge of keeping the arts in the city.
In October 2018, CAST was given the 112-year-old Dempster building by Brookfield Properties to offset the construction of three towers — one each for office, condos and rental apartments. The $1 billion project will be constructed in phases, and the Dempster arts hub will open a year before the first tower opens, said Swathi Bonda,director of development for Brookfield.
“We’re looking at at music production, literary arts, youth development, and what am I forgetting?” Eng asks herself during an exclusive tour for The Chronicle. Then she remembers: “Film and digital media, visual arts, and photography.”
The tenants have not yet been selected for the space, but they will all be nonprofit organizations paying below-market rent, by the year, the month or the event, Eng says.
Located on the western edge of the five-acre site, the Dempster building stands alone, a survivor among industrial buildings that have been leveled and surface parking lots that have been dug up in advance of heavy construction for towers. This quadrant hasn’t looked this bare since the earthquake and conflagration of 1906.
Designed by city architect William Mooser, the Dempster was among the first buildings to rise from the rubble. It was completed in 1907 to house both Dempster Bros. printing and the GlafkeElectric Co. The building was later sold to the Hearst Corp., which used it as a photo archive and test kitchen for the San Francisco Examiner. Hearst later purchased The Chronicle.
The Dempster had been vacant for 10 years when afire eruptednear the front door in the predawn hours of Aug. 29, 2016. The flames went up the elevator shaft to the roof, which was destroyed. This left a conveniently empty shell to build upon, under a new truss ceiling.
赫斯特然后出售了其发展5 m的一半its partner Forest City, which was itself bought by Brookfield Properties. Brookfield donated the Dempster building to CAST, which already owns and operates the CounterPulse Dance headquarters and theater on Turk Street in the Tenderloin and the Luggage Store Gallery on Market Street.
“The long-term vision is to create a constellation of buildings to address the whole issue of affordable space for artists,” Eng says.
The Dempster is CAST’s first venture in South of Market and also the first of the constellations. It comes with an acre of outdoor space called Mary Court to be programmed by CAST in partnership with Brookfield Properties. Eng sees it as an indoor/outdoor living room and gallery.
There could be live music both inside and out, along with outdoor films and spoken-word performances. Funding for those performers should not be an issue because, in addition to the donation of the Dempster, Brookfield Properties is obligated to contribute 1% of the total construction cost to art, which amounts to $5.4 million. Most developers put it into a sculpture or other permanent work that enhances the value of the structure, but Brookfield plans to donate its 1% to CAST — $3.2 million to build out the arts studio and office space at Dempster and $2.2 million to develop programming, in partnership with the San Francisco Arts Commission.
The first piece of public art already comes with the building, the “Let’s Go Giants!” painted across the east-facing side, a relic from the World Series years. Eng and her classic jazz ensemble wouldn’t mind singing on an outdoor stage under that sign or indoors between the brick walls. Her album,“The Blue Hour,”arranged by Wayne Wallace, was released in July by Patois Records, and the promotional tour could still be going when the Dempster opens in a year.
“It’s rare to be able to perform in a space that has such character and warmth,” she says, “and to sing before your own community would be a thrill.”
