OAKLAND — When a team of Oakland natives last fall purchased the sprawling six-acre property that is American Steel Studios, many of the more than 200 artists who worked there breathed a sigh of relief.

They had, since 2014, been living under a cloud of uncertainty after the owner put the highly-visible, West Oakland property up for sale. And prospects for the artists looked dim with proposals for a Costco warehouse or condos looming large. Then the team at 11 West Partners emerged, and they committed to keeping the space affordable for the artists.

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The super-rich get even super-richer during the pandemic “It made me optimistic that the right people had come along, and they would keep it artist friendly and allow it to grow and thrive,” said Karen Cusolito, who founded American Steel Studios as an incubator for artists in need of affordable studio space.

But now, less than a year later, Cusolito and a host of other tenants in the building are leaving. Some have not been offered new leases, they said. Others are leaving voluntarily, citing a rigid management approach that stifles creativity and makes them uncertain about the future. For Cusolito, who first started working in the space in 2006, it’s the end of an era.

“It’s not likely I will ever find anything like this again,” she said “But, it’s been an incredible, incredible time in this building and in this area. It’s really heartbreaking to leave.”

It’s not that the new owners of American Steel are forcing out all the former tenants. They just have a different idea of how the building should operate, said Gerris Wilkinson, a Skyline High School grad and former New York Giants linebacker and one of the partners.

Rather than concentrating the bulk of activity at the building during nights and weekends, when many artists said they spend their time after leaving their day jobs, Wilkinson said they’re hoping to bring in more tenants who work during the day. They’re looking to standardize the spaces, bring the building up to modern codes and most of all, Wilkinson said, make it a safe space to work.

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The team at 11 West had been focused on safety “since day one,” Wilkinson said, but it didn’t help that the Ghost Ship fire, the deadliest in the city’s history, happened just a month after his team purchased the property. The company’s partners and its property management team had a meeting the very next day, Wilkinson said.

“We saw the building through very different eyes that morning,” he said. “It just made us accelerate the already fast pace of safety improvements.”

That involved clearing out trash and debris that had been stashed in the building, he said. And, it meant new rules, such as not storing materials above shipping containers, rearranging spaces to ensure proper egresses, and no drugs or alcohol.

The team is still in the process of meeting with each of the 100 or so lease holders in the buildings, Wilkinson said, a process the company is using to see who will fit into American Steel’s future.

“We came up with a list of house rules we thought would start to change the culture around safety,” he said. “That started a process of tenants that we felt like didn’t fit.”

Some of the people who were not offered new leases include: Greg Leyh of Lightning on Demand, who was attempting to build two Tesla coil towers, each 12 stories tall, to test the mechanics behind lightning; Grower’s Secret, an organic composting company; Feral Change, a nonprofit cat rescue; and Ryon Gesink, a welder who does custom metalwork and sculptures.

Leyh was just three months away from testing a smaller-scale prototype of his tower when he got the bad news.

“It’s kind of the worst timing ever,” he said. “I guess some guy doing scientific research, that’s not very interesting to the general public, at least not in their view.”

Others, such as Don Cain, a founding member of the Department of Spontaneous Combustion, a metal working collective and fire art shop, said the difficulties in trying to renew their lease prompted them to look elsewhere. They ultimately found a new space at M0xy, a 40,000 square-foot warehouse in Oakland’s Jingletown neighborhood.

“We were just lucky there was another space we could go to,” he said. “They welcomed us with open arms, and we ended up with more space than we had for less rent than we were paying, which was, in our current real estate market, totally unexpected.”

For Dan Good, who crafts sculptures from stainless steel, the uncertainty about whether he would be able to renew his lease, and at what price, was too stressful. The idea of trying to find affordable housing coupled with a lengthy commute prompted Goode to leave the Bay Area. He and his girlfriend are living comfortably in Portland now, he said.

“I went to American Steel because I didn’t want someone looking over my shoulder,” Goode said. “There aren’t a lot of places you can go to just mess around and learn, and it’s unclear if it will be like that anymore.”

But for others, such as Jose Leonel Juarez, the founder of Elite Iron Works, which makes custom fences and furniture, more rules and more structure is a good thing. He’s looking forward to the owners pouring concrete over the dusty asphalt, building standardized fences to replace the chainlink that separates each studio, hiring security to watch over the building and putting locks on the doors.

“They have a good positive vision for this place,” Juarez said. “They want to make sure it’s a professional place where people can come and where (artists) can actually still afford to rent here.”

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