Warehouse Slammed by Taxes, May Close
Earlier this week we heard some terrible news for one of our favorite venues in the city. Warehouse Arts Complex, located on the developing 7th Street corridor near the Convention Center, was greeted with a property tax bill over 500% what they paid last year. The concert venue, art gallery, theater, screening room, and cafe/bar serves the arts community in more ways than any location outside the Kennedy Center, but this kind of work isn't a goldmine, and Warehouse continues to lose money every year despite successful show after successful show due to factors like skyrocketing property taxes in their neighborhood seen year after year. With this last huge blow, owners Molly and Paul Ruppert are now seriously considering closing up shop or at the very least, moving the venue to a new, cheaper location.
The Washington City Paper blog summarizes Warehouse's great history, noting that the Ruppert family has owned the property for over 130 years and transformed it from a hardware store to a restaurant before it slowly evolved into a place for creative talent of all kinds.
Everyone knows that DCist has a special place in its heart for Warehouse. When we needed a venue that would take a chance on an art show featuring an unwieldy number of unknown photographers, organized by a bunch of Internet writers with no experience but plenty of passion, Warehouse was the first name out of all our mouths. Our experience with the venue and with the Rupperts was more than just business, they went out of their way to answer our many questions, give us access to their resources, and spend the time necessary to make sure our nascent show was hugely successful. (In fact, most of the Exposed photographers were so smitten with the place they spent half their time shooting the character-riddled gallery walls, and we know a few who've expressed interest in using the space for their own photoshoots.)
Image by DCist Exposed photographer Kyle Walton.
The concerns of DCist over the future of the Warehouse are fully shared by the community, and Molly Ruppert expressed to us that, "We are overwhelmed that you and the Exposed photographers and so many others have so many supportive and encouraging things to say about Warehouse." Lenny Campello wrote about his experiences with Warehouse here, and if these aren't enough evidence that shuttering the doors would be a huge loss to the community, take a look at what happened just this week.
Artist and blogger J.T. Kirkland has been working continuously over the past few months to put together Supple, what initially looked to be one seriously great gallery show, with huge D.C. names like Colby Caldwell, Robin Rose, Laurel Lukaszewski, and a handful of talented up-and-comers. Suddenly, last week, their chosen venue ripped the carpet out from underneath them, and the show was homeless. Cancellation press releases went out and barely 24 hours later, Warehouse offered up their facilities -- even though the venue has already booked another art show. The Rupperts negotiated with Kirkland and the curators of the other show to make sure no one was left on the streets, and if that isn't community building, we don't know what is.
Campello, in his post, rightly calls out organizations like Washington Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Cultural Alliance of Greater DC to step-up and support this venue that embraces arts and culture like few others. We give all our support to Warehouse and know many of our readers do, too. If you've never been over to 7th Street, we'll have plenty of information for you in today's Arts Agenda about Supple and No Representation, so this weekend is a perfect time to check out the space, which is located just a block from the 7th Street/Convention Center Metro, and just across from artDC, the international art fair that starts today.