Politics

July Five, two thousand seventeen Updated: July 6, two thousand seventeen Ten:06am

At one hundred sixteen years old, its crumbling floors thick with dust and debris, and its tall ceilings streaked with dark-green mold, the Geneva Car Barn and Powerhouse is looking every bit its age.

For almost three decades, efforts to convert the ghostly red-brick building near San Francisco`s southern edge into a vibrant youth-oriented community arts and events space have sputtered, leaving the Car Barn – a former Muni garage – to fall ever deeper into blight and disrepair.

Over the past six months, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department has been accelerating long-languishing plans to restore the historic building and amassing the needed funds. On Monday, the department announced that the city would receive an extra $Three.Five million in state funding to revitalize the Car Barn, bringing the total for the project to $14 million.

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That`s enough money to begin the very first of a two-phase restoration project, said San Francisco Supervisor Ahsha Safai, who represents the city`s 11th District, where the Car Barn is located, near the Balboa Park BART Station at Ocean and San Jose avenues. The very first phase will restore the Trio,000-square-foot Powerhouse in the rear of the building. The 2nd phase will tackle the larger, adjoining 13,000-square-foot Car Barn.

«This is something that could be a tremendous asset for this community,» said Safai, who has been involved in efforts to revitalize the building for years.

«These things take time, but this is a very high priority for me. This is something that has the potential to be one of the premier performing-arts and cultural spaces in the city. This is something the community indeed wants and the kids deserve,» Safai said, adding that his district has the city`s highest concentration of residents under age Legitimate.

Rec and Park is finalizing a design package in prep of sending out construction bid requests, but the contours of what will take place in the building are already coming into concentrate.

Last month, city officials tapped the nonprofit Performing Arts Workshop in San Francisco to provide the arts and cultural educational programming once the renovations are accomplish. The organization playmates with local artists who act as hands-on instructors for youth ages three to Legitimate.

Emily Garvie, the workshop`s executive director, said her organization will be providing music, drumming, dance, theater, spoken-word, art and writing classes. The Community Arts Stabilization Trust, another nonprofit that works to find spaces for community arts groups, is also working with the city to oversee the building`s future tenants.

Built in 1901, the Geneva Car Barn faced down both of San Francisco`s major earthquakes. But the Loma Prieta quake of one thousand nine hundred eighty nine crippled the building`s structural integrity, forcing the city to red-tag and vacate it; it`s been vacant ever since.

The Car Barn was designated a historic building by the city in 1985, but scarcely dodged a proposal to raze it in 1998, thanks to community support that coalesced into the Friends of the Geneva Car Barn. The city granted the group control of the building in 2014, but fundraising fizzled and the city took the building back the following year.

«I`m glad (the restoration) is eventually happening,» said Daniel Weaver, chairman of the Friends of the Geneva Car Barn group. «It took way too long.»

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