Metropolitan Performing Arts Alliance Signs 10-Year Renewable Lease with Workhouse Arts Center

The nonprofit Metropolitan Performing Arts Alliance dance academy is the Workhouse Arts Center's newest tenant. The remaining artists have been cleared out of building W-4 (three have left for good, one relocated to a new studio on campus), and $350,000 in renovations will begin in May. 

"Because of the shortfall of venues on campus, our program is lacking in performing arts activities," said John Mason, the Workhouse President and CEO, to Patch. "Well, MPAA is all about visual arts."

• See Lorton's Workhouse Arts Center "Challenged By Financial Model" says President and CEO John Mason
• See Workhouse Arts Center Challenges

The Good News

"By leasing W-4 with essentially no risk to us, we will start FY14 with a $100,000 per-year new revenue stream," said Mason. "My aim is that our operational budget will have a positive balance."

MPAA is paying for the renovations (dance studios and classrooms) and the $100,000 rental rate will nearly double when the loan for renovations has been amortized. 

The dance school will undoubtedly bring foot traffic to the Workhouse, which has struggled to achieve self-sustainment since the former home of the Lorton Prison reopened to the public in 2008. The school has taught an estimated 10,000 children and adults in dance, music and theatre since opening in Alexandria and Fairfax Station in 2001. 

The Bad News

The MPAA move has been in the works for six months, said Mason, and the four remaining artists in W-4 were told in a meeting last Tuesday that they had to quickly move to different studios on campus. Three of the artists - Mary Gallagher Stout, John Gascot and Gina Cochrane - opted to leave altogether and have moved into a new space in Old Town, Alexandria. 

"We were basically told that we had to get out," said Stout. "There was no 30-day notice or finishing our leases." 

Mason said that no new artists have moved into W-4 since negotiations began with MPAA, and that the artists were aware that change was coming. 

"The reason notification was short notice was that I didn't want to make arrangements for MPAA coming to the site before the County and the bank approved it," he said, adding that the go-ahead was given on April 19.   

Stout and Gascot are two of the most popular and prolific artists at the Workhouse. 

• See Workhouse Artists Organize Second Annual 'Have a Heart' Project

"I think the Workhouse is an amazing place, but I think that it's run by the wrong people," said Stout. "It's a very unstable atmosphere. They don't run it for professional artists who are looking to pay their bills. It's like it's designed for people who are supported by the steady incomes of their spouses."

Mason said that the campus has 70 hard-to-fill artist vacancies, which will be made more competitive from the MPAA move.

"I'm proud of this deal," he said. 

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