A huge de-accessioned school building has been reborn as a 75,000 square foot artspace in the west end.  It’s been a long time coming – over six years – but this not-for-profit project is now leasing studio space to arts groups and individual artists at below market value rents, in a rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood.

Among the groups moving in this week: SKETCH working arts; the Luminato Festival; Koffler Gallery; the Centre for Indigenous Theatre; Paperhouse Studio; Intergalactic Arts Collective; and the Small World Music Centre.

ARTSPACE YOUNGPLACE (which takes its name from the Michael Young Family Foundation, a major donor) joins other artist-friendly centres across TORONTO – the Distillery District, Regent Park, 401 Richmond, the Gladstone and Drake hotels, and the Wychwood Barns.  Artscape’s main goal is to find studio space in the central city for the thousands of artists displaced by development.  Artspace Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street, between Queen and Dundas, is open to the public daily from 8am to 5pm