To All San Diego Elected Officials:

San Diego’s arts and cultural infrastructure is in crisis, leaving many artists and small- to medium-size arts organizations scrambling to find ways to continue to live, work, educate our youth, and share their work with the public in accessible, affordable spaces. This crisis came into focus recently when the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego announced plans to sell its downtown facilities at the historic Santa Fe Depot— an important, central, accessible site for important conversations about our binational region. 

MCASD has already relinquished another public cultural asset— a 70-year, $1/year lease for the Annex space on Kettner Boulevard —through a backdoor deal that bypassed a public process to ensure the highest use for this artist-designed, purpose-built space.

Even if the Annex site is lost to arts and culture, the Santa Fe Depot site represents a golden opportunity for local arts organizations to access a state-of-the-art, purpose-built facility in a City with very poor cultural infrastructure for all but the most well-heeled institutions. Moreover, a 2004 transfer agreement ensures a strong City role in deciding the future of this important site, including a provision to take it back for zero dollars. Yet the City appears poised to relinquish its authority both to take back the site and to decide, through a public process, the best use of this public asset going forward.

Prioritizing arts and culture is good business. According to research by the national advocacy group Americans for the Arts, San Diego County’s arts and culture nonprofit sector generated $1.37 billion in economic activity in 2022. Over the same period, these local nonprofits helped sustain almost 20,000 jobs and paid about $321 million in taxes to local, state and federal governments.

Both City and County officials are currently developing comprehensive plans to strengthen our arts and culture infrastructure. At the same time, the City has joined forces with the Prebys Foundation to reimagine the best design and use of the Civic Center. The Depot site is a key asset of the urban core, and its future use should be considered alongside the broader Civic Center project.

A thoughtfully designed, community-operated Depot site could reap enormous cultural, social, and economic benefits for the entire region. And with so many individual artists and small- to medium-size arts groups in such desperate need of venues where they can engage with the community, the Depot site presents an opportunity for a genuine community-based approach.

We strongly urge the City and County to act immediately through the 2025 budget process to ensure the best possible future use of the Depot site and to invest in all our arts and culture infrastructure through a transparent and inclusive public process.

Signed,