While the outside of Hunters Point’s former Navy building 116 looks majestic, sitting on the cusp of the San Francisco Bay, with glittering waters just beyond its walls, the inside is anything but glamorous.
Within the aging structure, plastic buckets are grouped all about, spread out in an attempt to catch the water that regularly seeps through the roof when it rains. 27 artists still work inside the building, and yet they seem to barely notice the crumbling ceiling anymore. This may seem like it would be a detriment to their work, but a few cracks in the ceiling are nothing compared to the fact that the building hasn’t even had running water or heat in their studios for more than 15 years.
For as much as it would seem that a building such as this needs substantial change to remain safe and livable, the artists working here just want to stay. They love their old, historic Navy warehouses built in the 1940s, with their tall ceilings, big windows, and stunning views, they just want a few minor adjustments to keep the space safe for them while they work.
The rooftop view of artist Lorna Kollmeyer’s studio shows the effects of water damage on the building at the Hunters Point shipyard in San Francisco, and yet she loves coming there to work.
After nearly four years of asking for help to fix the roof, they’re at the end of their rope. There are concerns that the building, which is still owned principally by the Navy and subsequently managed by the city of San Francisco and then by developer Five Point, may not survive another winter.
The Decline of Hunters Point’s Artistic Haven
After the Ohlone people were pushed off the fishing land they had occupied for thousands of years, Hunters Point was established as a commercial shipyard in San Francisco around 1870. It operated privately until the U.S. Navy acquired the land in 1940, utilizing the area for building and repairing ships during World War II. The Navy transformed hundreds of acres over the next three decades with dozens of buildings, including housing, and employed thousands of workers. The base was also home to a radiological laboratory after the war, which eventually conducted nuclear decontamination and radiological testing on-site.
The Navy shut down operations in 1974, and local businesses were offered space in the buildings. In 1976, sculptor Jacques Terzian saw the potential in the large empty warehouses, renting one as an artist studio, though he admits he didn’t tell his landlord he was an artist at the time, according to a documentary about his contributions to the area. He recruited others, and by 1983, a burgeoning art community had formed at the defunct military site. The group grew to more than 300 artists, one of the largest artists’ colonies in the country, split among a smattering of buildings at the shipyard.
Over the next two decades, new visions for the vast shoreline of southeast San Francisco began to take shape. The idea was for the massive area to be transformed into residential housing, office buildings, parks, and open space, even a hotel, much of it spurred by the state’s redevelopment agency to increase affordable housing. But it all hedged on an environmental cleanup of the EPA-designated super fund, led by the Navy, which has been ongoing for more than 30 years at a cost of more than $1 billion.
And now, it’s been so long since the original plans to relocate the artists were created, Kollmeyer thinks it’s time everyone took a step back and reexamined. When they were drawn up, the country hadn’t even entered the Great Recession, let alone lived through COVID-19 and plenty of other events that should inform how we look at developable space in a city like San Francisco.
A Call for Preservation and Vision: The Future of Hunters Point
She gestures to all the open spaces surrounding her, including several vacant buildings. “We just want to encourage people to think big for the arts,” she said. “Especially in this time when San Francisco is losing its funk, and losing the essence of what makes San Francisco San Francisco. It’s right here.”
