KING CITY — The Broadway Street location occupied by Sol Treasures for the past 13 years is no longer being rented by the arts center — it now belongs to the organization, board members recently announced.
With the property under control of Sol Treasures, the site can now be modified to better serve the organization and its impact on the lives of South Monterey County residents.
“We never had a home,” said Jeff Hinderscheid, deputy director for Sol Treasures. “Now that we have our own plot of land, we have the luxury of this huge backyard. We can gut that, put a building back there, put a storage unit. We can really start looking at making some changes that would benefit all of the kids in our program.”
Though the organization operated a gallery, some class and performance spaces, a small retail area and its offices out of the 519 Broadway St. building for more than a decade, it experienced problems when using other, larger places.
“We were having rehearsals for shows and getting kicked out of places for other priorities,” Hinderscheid said.
Such issues caused the board to consider buying a larger place somewhere else, but eventually members came to an agreement on purchasing their existing rented location to develop the site.
The decision was based on the desire to find the right space for what they wanted to give the community.
“This is probably two years ago now when we started having that conversation,” Hinderscheid said. “Eventually after some deep discussion, it became unanimous we needed to purchase our location. It’s already perfect here on Broadway and we have an established brand.”
Pete Anderson owned the property and made a deal with the Sol Treasures board for its purchase.
“After 13 years of being here, Barbara and Sonia, two of our three remaining founders, along with Bruce Graham, know that when they decide to retire from what they’re doing here, they can walk away knowing their legacy is secure,” Hinderscheid said.
Such legacy thinking had more of an impact after 2020, when many arts organizations ceased operations. What helped Sol Treasures was its varied programming with varied sources of funding, which Hinderscheid explained meant the organization had a surplus of money they were able to use for facility upgrades, future operations and sustainability as a nonprofit.
“It seemed like a really good time to make a responsible decision with those funds and purchase this place so we have some longevity in the future,” Hinderscheid said.
In addition to possibly revamping spots on the property, he said the 2020 shift to virtual programming has allowed Sol Treasures to also look more deeply into computerized and virtual offerings. It had already begun work on a virtual recording studio, and the shift to online meetings and performances meant instructors had a chance to learn more and experiment with technology.
The result is Sol Treasures being able to operate more widely from the small base location.
“We’ve been trying our best to keep programming going,” Hinderscheid said.
