Soho Housing launches latest commercial venture

As covered in Housing Digital and in editor Mark Cantrell’s blog, the opening of Great Pulteney Street gallery is part of Soho Housing Association’s mission to utilise their existing property portfolio to generate revenue for the provision and maintenance of their existing social housing stock and to provide affordable housing to those in Central London. The opening of the gallery was covered by Housing Digital online here and editor Mark Cantrell’s write up of the launch can be read here and in full below.

Art in Soho is coming home

Soho Housing, London, has opened its own art gallery to help raise revenue to invest in its residential portfolio

By Mark Cantrell

The opening of an art gallery in London might seem like no big deal, given it hogs so much of the UK’s cultural life to itself, but when the owner is a housing association, eyebrows surely rise.

By definition, they do houses; not arthouse, right?

Times change, and these days these charitable organisations are no stranger to expanding their outlook in an effort maintain what is supposedly their core purpose.

Soho Housing Association has launched the Great Pulteney Street gallery; a commercial venture intended to raise revenue to re-invest in its affordable housing portfolio.

The 90 square meter gallery is located at 36 Great Pulteney Street, a Grade II-listed building in the heart of Soho.

The gallery site holds a firm place in the association’s history as one of the first dilapidated properties it purchased when Soho Housing was founded in the early 1970s.

A mixed-use approach to these sites has been critical in ensuring families and workers are able to live in central London, the organisation says, and five affordable homes remain above the exhibition spaces.

As a gallery, the property offers three flexible gallery spaces, available for exhibitions, with high ceilings, wooden floors, and plenty of natural light.

“Tough economic conditions for the affordable housing sector and London’s extremely competitive property market requires housing associations to come up with creative and innovative solutions to the challenges we face,” said John Wallace, Soho Housing’s commercial director.

“Soho Housing has been a steward of our local community since 1973, and we are committed to identifying new ways to unlock the value of space in our diverse property portfolio for the benefit of our residents.

“Great Pulteney Street gallery is a step forward in our ability to continue to provide quality, affordable homes in central London. We are proud that it will contribute to the cultural identity of the area, too.”

The new gallery is regarded as a cornerstone in the organisation’s strategy to adapt to the increasing challenges affordable housing providers face amid tough economic and political conditions.

Soho Housing says “evolving” how the sites are used has been “critical” to maximising a revenue stream to upgrade its historic property portfolio to modern housing standards, and levels of efficiency.

As the organisation adds, its portfolio has always included mixed-use buildings, most notably the 125 Sandringham Flats above the historic ‘booksellers’ parade on Charing Cross Road.

The association also has 40 commercial units generating income to reinvest in its 800 residential properties. So, in that respect, maybe an art gallery isn’t such a strange addition to its activities after all?

Great Pulteney Street gallery’s first exhibition, At Home in Soho, features works from artists Diana Taylor, Jost Münster and Jacob Wolff alongside a show featuring work from artist D J Roberts. This last one used archives to celebrate the last 50 years of Soho Housing and its over 2,500-strong residential community.

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