Gage Academy of Art, a longtime school located in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, is moving to a modern facility at the base of an Amazon headquarters tower next year — and the tech giant is providing financial support to make it happen.
Gage, a nearly 35-year-old nonprofit, currently occupies space in the St. Nicholas Building next to St. Mark’s Cathedral. The school will move to a 14,000-square-foot custom-built space in Amazon’s 37-story re:Invent building next summer.
Amazon will provide Gage with more than $7.5 million in rent assistance over the next 10 years, and offset a significant portion of the cost of construction and space improvement, according to a news release on Thursday.
The space at 2105/2107 Westlake Ave. N., designed by Seattle architecture firm NBBJ, will feature flexible classroom designs, art studios, and communal student spaces to promote collaboration. The school’s leaders aim to serve a larger, more diverse student body in a central location, closer to more transportation options.
“Moving to a new space and implementing new, improved infrastructure resources will ensure we can fulfill Gage’s mission to educate, enrich, and transform the community through the visual arts,” Gage Academy of Art Board President Connie Mao said in a statement.
The move plays into the ongoing discussion in Seattle about ways to re-energize the downtown core in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and decreased foot traffic. Mayor Bruce Harrell’s “Downtown Activation Plan” has called for increased activation of arts and cultural spaces and events in the city to attract more visitors and to give office workers another reason to return, and stay after work.
Harrell and others have applauded Amazon, which employs roughly 75,000 people in the Seattle area, for instituting a return-to-office policy that requires corporate and tech workers to be in their South Lake Union offices at least three days a week.
“Creating space for the arts is vital for fostering a thriving downtown that brings together diverse retail, dining, entertainment, and culture options, and we’re thrilled that our Puget Sound headquarters will host Gage Academy of Art as part of this effort,” said John Schoettler, vice president of Global Real Estate and Facilities at Amazon.
Gage says a street-level retail space will be activated as a creative hub, turning the area near The Spheres and other Amazon office towers into a “district where tech and the arts coexist.”
Gage has already been part of the Amazon Expressions program, providing art classes to Amazon employees, since 2019. GeekWire profiled an “Artist in Residence” working out of the company’s Doppler building as part of that program in 2018.
“Unlimited possibilities will emerge by being a part of downtown on a bustling city corner,” said Gage co-founder Gary Faigin. “Gage is finally becoming a true big-city art school as my co-founder Pamela Beylea, and I, always dreamed it would be.”
