The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art announced Thursday that a patron has bought a 16,000-square-foot compound at 15 NE Hancock St. and offered it to PICA rent-free for 10 years, with an option to extend the lease 10 more.

“We’re moving into a space and not having a capital campaign,” said Ethan Seltzer, PICA’s board president and a professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University. “This is mind-blowing.”

For 21 years, PICA has been a pied piper of contemporary art, leading audiences into overlooked parts of town, transforming empty warehouses into art hot-spots for events like the Time-Based Arts Festival, or TBA, and building a community and an international reputation around creative DIY barn raising.

However, with the real estate market exploding across inner Portland, the nonprofit found it increasingly difficult to find affordable venues, particularly for TBA. It used to be PICA’s leaders could make a few phone calls; now, they found themselves spending months searching and still pushing deadlines when they couldn’t secure space until mid-summer.

In recent years, the organization began to question their itinerant model and whether it was time to settle down.

No one thought it would happen this fast.

Located behind the Toyota dealership on the northeast end of the Broadway Bridge, the complex includes a 10,000-square-foot warehouse, a smaller 3,000-square-foot warehouse, offices, and a retail space that PICA will convert into its public facing Resource Room. Drone footage exclusive to OPB shows the inside of the venue.

Read the full story: http://www.opb.org/artsandlife/article/portland-institute-contemporary-art-new-venue/