CounterPulse’s acquisition of our building in downtown San Francisco is a story of extraordinary ingenuity and inventive community collaboration – part emergent and iterative, part magic and catalytic. With the support and generosity of our community, we met our $7 million goal for the purchase of our home since 2014 from our partner and holding company, CAST.

Drawing of 80 Turk St by Sylvester Guard Jr.

In 2012, CounterPulse faced the reality that our long-term lease at our SoMA venue was coming to an end. Twitter had moved in around the block and we faced a massive rent spike. So we started shopping around. We were ready to grow and we wanted a new home. We contacted Community Vision (f.k.a Northern California Community Loan Fund) to analyze our capacity to take on a new facility. At that same time, Community Vision had just begun working with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation to develop the Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST) – an innovative new pilot project dedicated to securing sustainable space for the arts and culture in the Bay Area. Thanks to CounterPulse’s healthy financials, our commitment to community, and some good old lucky timing, we were selected by CAST to receive support to purchase and renovate a building of our own. Working with Community Vision, we found a building that was the perfect fit: the old Dollhouse theater at 80 Turk Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. At first, their pitch on how we could eventually buy the building seemed too good to be true, but as time has told we dove in head first. CAST took leadership in clearing through the debt and other complications saddling the building, and Jensen Architects joined the team to design the renovation. Then the former owner of the Dollhouse visited our previous location on Mission Street, and was so moved by the work of CounterPulse, that he sold the building to CAST at a philanthropic price. We set-up shop at the un-renovated 80 Turk in the winter of 2014 and did tons of pop-up programming: from short residencies to dance parties, from performances to hackathons. We let the building begin to tell us what it wanted to become. In February 2015, federal funding in the form of a New Markets Tax Credit came through and we broke ground. After more than a year of construction and seven months of CounterPulse being displaced, we moved into our new home in March 2016.

This model of investing in spaces for the arts has been revolutionary worldwide, and we are proud to be the proof that this model works and pave the way for it to be replicated throughout the Bay Area and beyond — Oakland and London are already modeling their own versions of CounterPulse and CAST’s partnership.

Learn more about CounterPulse’s vision >>

Watch this interview with Julie Phelps on why it’s so important to secure space for the arts in San Francisco

 See the full gallery >>        Check out photos from the 2015 renovation >>

CounterPulse in step with tech firm neighbors – SF Gate (2015)

2017 Inspirations Awards Winners Announced – Contract Magazine (2017)

How one arts organization saved itself when Twitter moved in next door – Fast Company (2022)

CounterPulse within reach of building purchase in TL – Broke Ass Stuart (2022)

CounterPulse finalizes $7M acquisition of its San Francisco venue – SF Business Times (2023)