The Future of Noonan: Preserving their Legacy & Building a Vision for Pier 70

The Noonan Building has been an artists’ enclave since the 1980s. For many years, isolated amid Dogpatch’s historical ship repair businesses, it has been an oasis for artists. Today, the Noonan Building is home to about 40 artists and creative small businesses: painters, sculptors, printmakers, musicians, designers, illustrators, documentary filmmakers, a letterpress, jeweler, architects, and photographers.    

A Resilient Community

The Noonan Building Artists are the current caretakers of the Noonan Building located at Pier 70, part of a 28-acre mixed-use development approved in 2018 and under construction by Brookfield Properties. For years, the Noonan Artists have worked with Brookfield and the Port of San Francisco to ensure that affordable artist studios are included in the new development, as part of a new, up-to-90,000 sq. ft. arts building at Pier 70. 

“To keep San Francisco the vibrant hub of art and culture, artists and space for artists must be part of the plan. At Pier 70, the plan is very important to me, but even more so to those artists who will come after us,” said long-time Noonan Artist Marti McKee.

Through a partnership agreement between Brookfield Properties and CAST, in 2023 CAST led the Noonan Artists over seven months and the broader arts community through a concept planning process and feasibility study designed to center and elevate artists’ voices in determining the needs and vision for the new arts building: Dreaming Spaces.

Given the scale of the project–it would likely be the largest new construction building dedicated to arts uses since Yerba Buena Center for the Arts was opened in 1993–CAST understood the ambition and the potential impact of the project, as well as the degree of care and trust that would be required to develop an inclusive, functioning, dynamic, and desirable place for art, culture, and community.

“Having a non-profit that advocates for, acquires, and manages permanent, affordable spaces for artists and arts organizations is a welcome relief.  Right from the start, CAST invited all the Noonan Building Artists to participate in the plans for the future. Agreements like this between Brookfield and CAST should be a precedent-setting model to keep artists a part of our everyday lives.”  —Marti McKee, Noonan Artist

Centering Artists’ Voices In Design

Just as Brookfield built Pier 70’s arts building around the idea of a permanent home for the Noonan Artists, CAST’s Dreaming Spaces at Pier 70 began with engaging the Noonan Artists on their needs and desires. We then reached out to hyperlocal, SF city-wide, and Bay Area-wide artists, cultural workers, creatives, arts connectors and service providers, SF Cultural Districts, and SF Cultural Centers in a process of visioning for a new arts building that would also provide a permanent home for the existing Noonan Artists as well as arts service organizations like Dancers’ Group (100+ dance programs), Intersection for the Arts (170 artist projects), Theater Bay Area (180 theater-producing companies, 1200 theater-making artists), and Emerging Arts Professionals (200+ alumni in their network). Through these parallel and overlapping points of contact, we engaged in conversations with almost 200 artists and community members. 

We approached these groups with the framing, “What do you want to see in a new regional arts center?”

As we spoke with a wide range of stakeholders, it became apparent that we had jumped in without considering some basic, foundational questions, centered around this notion of a “regional arts center”: Who asked for a regional arts center? Why at this location on the southeast edge of San Francisco? Would a regional arts center compete with and crowd out more local, community-based arts investment? 

Reconsidering Our Assumptions

In hindsight, we were dazzled by the scale of the project, and that created blind spots in how we approached our framing. “Regional Arts Center” was entirely a CAST construct. We did not stop to think about how those words would land and ultimately be perceived by all the arts and cultural organizations that already make up and sustain the dense cultural landscape of our region. For example, our outreach efforts birthed a fleeting rumor that this new project would consolidate and replace all of the City’s existing Cultural Centers—a false notion that was quickly snuffed out but misleading nonetheless around our intentions.

All the questions and honest feedback provided us with valuable perspective that refined our considerations and have shaped where we are now. We are no longer considering a regional arts center with a broader convening function. However, the Noonan Artists’ need for permanent affordable studios remains (and remains a priority), as well as the unique facility needs of other local arts organizations long-based in and serving the Dogpatch/Bayview communities that could be a part of a future arts building. The top elements of a thriving arts center that were surfaced through the Dreaming Spaces process as project priorities are the same, regardless of a regional or local focus: affordable; honoring diversity of cultures and art forms; equity-centered; and accessible, inclusive & engaging.

Adjusting As We Go: Thinking Creatively About Real Estate

Regardless of the final project, the key through all of this is that we must continue to support artists’ voices in all projects. We welcome, and expect, candid feedback and diversity of opinions. And subsequently, we must always be ready to adjust and pivot. 

CAST’s ability to influence the real estate paradigm through building the agency of artists and cultural workers is a mutual practice, one with give-and-take that relies on deep listening and digesting many perspectives, especially from artists and community residents most closely impacted. Transparency is a must, not only to share and absorb lessons learned, but also to provide a roadmap to navigate–and sometimes reroute–our dreaming, designing, and building when we attempt to scale a project and marshal resources. Maintaining a level of fluidity in our understanding has proven to be an essential tool to keeping ourselves accountable to the artists we serve. Having the privilege of collaborating with the Noonan Artists and engaging with other cultural anchors in the Dogpatch/Bayview community through this experience has only made it more clear that we need to think about real estate projects with the same expansiveness and creative flexibility as the organizations that inspire us.