The story is as old as time, repeated over and over. We just didn’t think it would happen in Bremerton. A cultural trauma is before us. The old art story and Bremerton is a combination that doesn’t make sense, but it’s happening right before our very eyes.

Artists come into a commercial economically depressed area. Artists and art create an attraction. New businesses and condos pop up. Property values and taxes increase, and the artist and small gallery owner are pushed aside to make room for the polished professional side of life.

It’s that Soho, New York story. Bremerton is about to rise to a strong economic level. Ask any Realtor. Available houses in West Bremerton are becoming a thing of the past, and industry, condos, and hotels are juggling for position as we speak.

This is partly due to the presence of art and the Bremerton Arts District. Does art make that much of a difference. You bet! If you want to attract the brightest and the best you need a good cultural playing field.

I love the knick-knack, souvenir, kitchen stores, and microbrewery day-trip towns, but Bremerton is another breed. It is a fringy-off Broadway setting, and an official city deemed, Arts District. In a couple block radius are three museums, three performing arts facilities, an array of galleries and an every 1st Friday of the month gallery walk. It is a fine art scene laced with low rent artist studios, low rent gallery and museum spaces and affordable houses. But today will soon be tomorrow, and tomorrow’s Bremerton will not pander to its valuable commercial space being occupied by well-intentioned poor artists.

And speaking of well intentioned, I’ve been contacted by at least a half dozen people or groups who are entrepreneurial sense recognized need and opportunity, and a project that would receive little resistance. That being artist studio or loft space in or near Downtown Bremerton.

It’s a no-brainer, low income housing status, arts district, possible government funding for such, and backed with community support. And the best aspect is the no risk one. If it doesn’t work out with the artists – “Hey what the heck, spend a couple hundred dollars cleaning and painting, quadruple the rent, and any polished attorney or architect would jump a the chance to land an office in the now highly developed Downtown Bremerton.

Do you see where I’m going? It’s that story older than time, development verses the artist. Artists can’t be herded, and artists have special needs. While looking at one guys floor plans I said “and where’s the slop sink?” He looked at me like I was crazy as I continued, “Does this accommodate multiple use ventilation, emit ions codes, chemical waste codes, extra floor support for heavy equipment and so on?”

Most of the artists that contacted me last year were working sculptors looking for large live/work spaces. Most ended up going to Tacoma.

Let the artist find their own nooks, crannies, offices or abundant commercial garages, and then give them live-in concessions, code exceptions, tax breaks, government assisted opportunities and city grant writers just for artist venues. That sentence will fly right over a lot of people’s heads. Why, because it is not economically conducive to a developer. But wait! Remember, artists and art is an attraction, and the benefits are relative in the big picture. Maybe Bremerton will add a new chapter to the age-old story?.