Artscape

Artscape: For close to 30 years, Artscape has been on a mission to carve out affordable space for creative types in a city, with its skyrocketing property market, that has been less than eager to accommodate. For the past 15, under Jones, it has taken leaps forward, culminating with this, the not-for-profit developers biggest project to date: 75,000 square feet, offering space to two-dozen tenants and owners, large and small, at below market rates, according to The Star. Even so, Jones is looking forward, not back. One of my great ambitions is, How do we really scale this up? he says. Thats whats exciting for me and Its the afternoon before the evening opening, at last, of Artscape Youngplace, the brand-new name for the battered old hulk of a school building on Shaw St. given up for dead, more than a dozen years ago. And if Artscape CEO Tim Jones who virtually willed it into existence over six trying years is allowing himself a moment of quiet satisfaction, well, fair enough. The building teems with energy, with art installations in the hallways and stairwells, a ground floor lounge and caf , and, on this day, the space buzzing with local schoolkids on tour and the busy work of tenants and owners moving into former classrooms. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.