Arts groups based in the Downtown Eastside say they have been overlooked by the owner and developer of the former Pantages site at 138 East Hastings Street.

Marc Williams is proposing a new development for the site, called Sequel 138, that would include a 2,500-square-foot art space on the main floor in addition to 79 one-bedroom condos to be sold at $227,000 each, and 18 social-housing units. A letter of intent has been signed with the nonprofit group Art Space Action Society to purchase the art space at a discounted rate.

But protesters including W2 Community Media Arts executive director Irwin Oostindie say Williams ignored arts groups working in the DTES. “It [Art Space Action Society] is a new organization that’s made up of people who are interested in cultural-space development,” said Oostindie. “They don’t have any explicit ties to this Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. It’s quite shameful that the city staff and the planning staff would actually be encouraging Marc Williams to be working with this organization.”

Williams said he is still exploring plans with Art Space Action: “The way I typically approach things is we’ll review an opportunity with a potential stakeholder to see if we can come up with some great opportunities together and if we can, excellent. If not, we kind of go our separate ways, and then we go to the next group that would potentially work.”¦I think the idea is first to, rather than go out and talk to a whole bunch of people and try to play them off against each other, we pick one group, work with them to determine whether it will work or it won’t work with them. If it works, awesome. If not, then we pick the next person, the next group that makes some sense.”

Requests to speak to a representative from Art Space, which does not have a web presence, were not responded to by press time. David Duprey, owner of the Rickshaw Theatre and a number of East Side artist’s studios, said he had been the group’s executive director and signed an agreement with Williams but is no longer affiliated with the organization.

“When I signed that agreement [with Williams], that was an agreement to tentatively talk to us about coming in and taking over one of the spaces,” said Duprey. “That was just Art Space Action saying that there’s a conversation we’re having with Marc about the potential for putting artist space in there.”

Duprey said he supports Williams’s plans.

In October 2009, Williams, with the support of the Pantages Theatre Arts Society, sought a bonus density transfer to fund the theatre’s restoration, but when the city placed a moratorium on such transfers, he hammered out a deal to have the city purchase the theatre outright. That deal collapsed when the city requested a feasibility study, causing more delays during which time the theatre deteriorated beyond repair. Williams subsequently placed the property on the market with a price tag of $8.2 million, and in 2010, the city again declined to buy it. The city’s 2010 assessed land value for the property—which includes the Pantages and four adjacent buildings—was $3.7 million.