SAND – “The Best Untold Story in Boston”

A panel discussion with members of Seaport Alliance for Neighborhood Design;
Steve Hollinger, Christina Lanzl, Jon Seward, Gustavo Soto-Rosa, and Cheryl Forte

"How do we, with limited financial and political power, leverage our skills and voices to change the direction of Boston's development?"

Thursday, February 22, 2007

8 PM

It was remarked upon once by a former top City of Boston official to Studio Soto’s Director, Jed Speare, that the advocates of SAND and their work in the Fort Point community was “the best untold story in Boston.” In tonight's presentation, we will hear about the origins and formation of the group, some of their strategies, goals, means, successes, and current concerns from five members of SAND, in their own words.

SAND was founded in 1997 by a group of resident artists, architects, activists and business owners in Boston's Fort Point neighborhood who wanted to help develop a successful urban plan for the city's fastest developing district, rather than watching it evolve as back-office space under the strong influence of market forces.
 
As Fort Point's turn-of-the-century warehouses became increasingly attractive to developers and city planners for use as commercial space, SAND envisioned the area - including the larger South Boston Waterfront - for its potential as a vibrant, urban neighborhood on Boston Harbor. To fulfill a grand vision of Fort Point over the next hundred years, SAND members identified a need for thousands of housing units, ample greenspace, civic and cultural facilities, and neighborhood commercial amenities. Few, if any, of these accommodations were being incorporated into city plans.
 
For SAND members, the question remained, "How do we, with limited financial and political power, leverage our skills and voices to change the direction of Boston's development?" This is the point of departure for the panel discussion at Studio Soto. Founding members of SAND, including Cheryl Forte, Steve Hollinger, Christina Lanzl, Jon Seward and Gustavo Soto-Rosa will discuss the methods and strategies that they employed to work with (and without) City Hall to shape the future of an entire district.

SAND WEBSITE

Participant bios:

Cheryl Forté has worked in Fort Point for 30 years.  She has been an FPAC board member for more than 20 years.  She is board member of Fort Point Cultural Coalition and was a project manager for its development of Midway Studios.

Steve Hollinger is a Boston-based sculptor and inventor, and was a co-founding member of Seaport Alliance for a Neighborhood Design. Hollinger was recently appointed to a study committee of the Boston Landmarks Commission, seeking designation of Fort Point as a Local Landmark District. He has served as a panelist on the Boston Redevelopment Authority's Artist Certification Initiative and member of the BRA Fort Point Advisory Committee.

Christina Lanzl, a co-founder of the Seaport Alliance for a Neighborhood Design (SAND), is a visual artist and public art project manager at the UrbanArts Institute at Massachusetts College of Art. Christina has lived and worked in Fort Point for twelve years. Her expertise in the arts and culture are complemented by twenty years of experience in working with design teams and professionals in the creative sector, and people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.

Jon Seward is a principal of Community Design Partnership, an architectural and planning firm based in the Fort Point district.  The firm's practice includes revitalization of urban neighborhoods, adaptive reuse, sustainability, transportation planning, permitting, and consensus building, from the small scale up to regional levels for private and governmental clients.  A founder of SAND, Mr. Seward serves on the boards of the Boston Preservation Alliance and Move Mass, a member of the Board of Overseers of the Boston Architectural College, and is a past vice- president of WalkBoston. He has also been appointed to numerous committees on development, planning and transportation.  He produces furniture, mixed media sculpture and other artworks in his Fort Point studio.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Gustavo Soto-Rosa studied architecture at Universidad Simon Bolivar focusing his thesis on the urban re-design of La Guaira, the historic port of Caracas. He went on to join an interdisciplinary team as an urban designer working on the renewal of the historic waterfront of Carupano, a small city in the East Coast of Venezuela. In 1984 he moved to the San Francisco Bay area where he obtained a Master's of Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley specializing in the management of large scale projects and programs. He has been part of the management team of large infrastructure projects/programs including the Boston Harbor Cleanup Project, Boston’s Convention and Exhibition Center, Hartford’s Clean Water Project, New York’s Second Avenue Subway, and New York’s Water Dependability Program.  Gustavo is a co-founder of SAND, and Studio Soto and a resident of Fort Point since 1995.