Eastside Arts Society secures funding to purchase its headquarters at 716 East Hastings
Vancouver City Council greenlights $2,665,000 for acquiring the property, with funds from the False Creek Flats Amenity Share Reserve
The back and front of the Eastside Arts Society’s digs at 716 East Hastings.
THE EASTSIDE ARTS SOCIETY is ready to purchase its own building.
Vancouver City Council today unanimously gave the organization behind the massive Eastside Culture Crawl the go-ahead to purchase the space at 716 East Hastings for offices and artist studios.
Council approved a Making Space for Arts and Culture grant of $2,665,000 from the False Creek Flats Amenity Share Reserve to fund the project. The 2017 False Creek Flats Plan allowed for collecting contributions tied to new development in that area of the city.
Since 2015, the EAS has operated from the location, a 5,980-square-foot Artist Studio Class B building that serves as a production and presentation cultural hub.
The building owner made the EAS a one-time offer to purchase the property at a fixed rate, expiring in May 2026.
Staff recommended the strategic grant of $2,665,000 to support the property acquisition, conditional upon review and confirmation of the sale, and registration of a Community Use Agreement on title, securing the site for nonprofit shared artist production, presentation, and programming uses for “the latter of the life of the building or 20 years”.
Staff said the grant would support several goals in the City’s Making Space for Arts and Culture plan, from securing affordable cultural space to increasing community ownership and expansion of tools like the cultural district.
Amid an artists’ space crisis, the City has a policy of no net loss of cultural spaces. The EAS’s own studies have tracked 400,000 square feet of art studios lost due to rising rents and redevelopment over the past several years. Its plan for an Eastside Arts District seeks to combat that trend and ensure long-term, affordable spaces for the high concentration of artists in the area.
Now in its 30th year, the EAS has programming that includes the Crawl and the summer’s Eastside Arts Festival centred in Strathcona Park.
At the same meeting, Council approved $5,609,000 in grants and an in-kind contribution of $61,598 to 165 cultural organizations. 
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