Photo by Kevin Harber

Local arts incubator Cultural DC has sold its G Street space Flashpoint, which has been a hub of visual arts and theater (including the photography show formerly known as DCist Exposed) since 2003, Washington City Paper reports.

Flashpoint is just the latest arts institution to pack up and leave the Penn Quarter area, which has seen a wave of commercial revitalization that has come at the expense of what once was a thriving arts district. The Goethe-Institute, which moved into offices on Seventh Street in 1996 and was one of the neighborhood’s artistic hub, closed in December of last year.

Old time Washingtonians who remember Penn Quarter in the days of d.c.space may find the area safer to walk these days, but much less interesting. With art spaces like Civilian, Touchstone, and Zenith long gone, Flashpoint was one of the few holdouts of a creative downtown. In 12 to 18 months, they’ll be gone.

WCP’s Kriston Capps writes:

The organization put the second floor of its Gallery Place base up for sale last fall, according to interim executive director Tanya Hilton. Groups such as Fringe Festival, Washington Improv Theater, and Step Afrika! got their start in that second-floor incubator space. “Twelve years ago, it was a thriving haven for artists and nonprofits that had a need for administrative space,” Hilton says, but in recent years the space has since gone under-used.

While CulturalDC only intended to sell its second floor, Joe Reger, principal for JCR Companies, approached CulturalDC with an offer for both: the offices as well as the storefront gallery Flashpoint and the black box Mead Theatre Lab.