Every unit is occupied at the Siler Yard: Arts + Creativity Center, bringing hope to makers, artists, and creative entrepreneurs who are being priced out of the rental housing market. We believe Santa Fe’s creative class is central to its identity as an arts destination, and we’re proud to have catalyzed the state’s first net-zero,* multi-family affordable housing development for City Different creatives.

The project began in 2012, when rents in Santa Fe had increased 25% since 2000, but renters’ incomes remained stagnant over the same period of time. Working class Santa Feans were feeling the squeeze. Among them were the jewelers, sculptors, visual artists, performers, media artists, and craftspeople whose work has contributed to Santa Fe’s economic vitality and reputation.

Siler Arts + Creativity Center houses over 265 residents in its 65 units. The Siler Yard community partners with MAKE Santa Fe to access tools, technology, and workshops to expand their creative pursuits and their entrepreneurship aspirations.

As the housing shortage intensifies, both in Santa Fe and around the nation, we hope our small community will inspire more creative, collaborative, and local solutions to this global problem.

Thank you to all of key partners to helping us actualize this project for our community.

* USING RENEWABLE SOLAR POWER TO GENERATE AS MUCH OR MORE ENERGY AS IT CONSUMES.

Creative Santa Fe reached out to more than 35 creatives from multiple disciplines, inviting them to brainstorm ideas for an affordable live-work community. We then partnered with Artspace, a national nonprofit specializing in art spaces and live-work housing, to research the Santa Fe market, and eventually identify the city-owned land on Siler Road as a promising location for the community. Our talented developer Daniel Werwath, with the nonprofit New Mexico Inter-Faith Housing, joined in 2013, shepherding the project through repeated applications for federal tax credits and helping to secure a prestigious “Our Town” planning grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.In 2016, after many conversations, the city generously donated the five-acre plot of land off Siler Road. MASS Design Group (formerly Atkin Olshin Schade Architects), da Silva Architecture, and Surroundings Studio created the award-winning design for the community, and Pavilion Construction of Albuquerque broke ground in 2020.