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a typical outdoor view of Union Square and the painted mural Union Building on 2nd Street in downtown Pomona, CA, with popups and pedestrians enjoying a 2nd Saturday Artwalk

Pomona Arts Colony

The Pomona Arts Colony, Arteco Partners' flagship development, is a historic neighborhood dedicated to the creative arts, creative commerce, education, and urban living. The Arts Colony is home to Artist Lofts, the Second Saturday Art Walk, and numerous works of Public Art.

 

Among the many different developments done by Arteco Partners in the Arts Colony neighborhood are the Progress Building and its basement art gallery; the Founder's Building; the Union Block; the Fox Theater; the Glass House; Acerogami; the Oxarart Block; the Wright Brothers Building; the Wurl Building; the Armory Lofts; the Tate Building; the Opera Garage; the Civic Center; and the School of Arts and Enterprise .

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To find out more about the Pomona Arts Colony, check out PomonaArtsColony.com.

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night time exterior shot of the Progress Building at 3rd & Thomas in Pomona, CA, with a glowing Fox Theater on far left and the Gains Building on the right, a few cars angle-parked on Thomas, groundfloor retail & restaurant/club spaces lit up with awnings and the vintage deco exterior facades showing tall commercial windows elaboratedly decorated with fillials and finnions.

The Progress Building 

This 1931 Art Deco building was formerly the headquarters of the Progress Bulletin, now known as the Daily Bulletin. It was abandoned and cocooned in 1960's style metal screening and asbestos when Arteco began revitalizing it. The beautiful facade was exposed, and the formed concrete ceilings and other architectural delights were re-discovered inside. The Progress now features upper floor live/work artist lofts, ground floor retail, and a non-profit community art gallery receives donated space in the basement.

exterior street-shot of the Founders Building on the corner of 3rd & Thomas in Pomona, CA. Five stories with large paneled windows on top four, white stone exterior with ornate deco roof-edge pediment and ground-floor commercial space (Vietnamese Restaurant) and cars angle-parked on both streets.

The Founder's Building

The 1915 Investment building was partially modernized in the 1980's. After Arteco Partners acquired the building, they revitalized it with open floor plan live/work lofts on the second and third floors, creative offices on the fourth and fifth floors, and with two non-profit community art galleries in the basement. Two retail spaces activate the ground level, including local favorites, Pho Vina Vietnamese restaurant and Homage Brewery.

an exterior street view of the Wurl Building in downtown Pomona with extensive red-brick facade, paned windows, industrial rollup door, gutters, glassed entrance doors with prominent address numbers, potted plants on the sidewalk, palm trees in the middle distance and a white sky

The Wurl Lofts

The 500 Block of West Second Street is one of the best surviving examples of pre-WWII industrial blocks in Southern California. Arteco performed the adaptive re-use of three historic buildings in the district into twenty-two live/work lofts. Lofts feature open-beam ceilings, concrete floors, original brick walls, central heating and air, a full kitchen with stove, and full baths. Some units feature roll-up door access and some feature glass store-front frontage.

 

a night-time low-angle photo of the wide sidewalk and some of the retail storefronts of the Union Building on 2nd Street in downtown Pomona,wth lots of hanging signage and tea lights strung from trees and old-time streetlamps. DPOA can be seen in the foreground.

Union Block West

With portions dating to the 1890's, the Union Block West is one of the oldest structures in Pomona. It now features live/work artist lofts, retail spots, and the Rookery Ale House restaurant. La Bomba Vintage Clothing Boutique has been growing along with the Arts Colony since 1996.The second floor lofts occupy former classrooms and offices of the City's first grade school. In 2003, internationally renowned artist, Judy Chicago, led a team of eight local muralists to complete the "Envisioning the Future" mural on the western facade facing Thomas Plaza.

a demonstration photo of a typical work-live loft space, fully furnished and decorated for a lived-in look & feel, includes a rolling bar, funky furniture, a full kitchenette with pots & pans, paintings on the wall and small loft with carpeted stairway and lounger with computer upstairs, some partial skylight

Affordable Artist Lofts

There are a large number of affordable live/work artist lofts in many of the historic buildings owned by Arteco Partners in the Pomona Arts Colony, thanks to the "Live/Work Ordinance" that was established in 1978.

 

Exterior shot of the Oxarart Building on 2nd Street in Pomona, CA with flowering purple jacaranda trees, streetside stone planters, groundfloor retail storefronts and 2nd-story studio work-live loft tall windows on a cream-colored facade.

Oxarart Block

The most eclectic block in Pomona features an 1885 cast iron storefront facade (the oldest in all of the Pomona Valley), a 1950's Thrifty's-Drugstore-turned-concert-hall, and a Frank Gehry-esque 2010 sculptural metal facade on the Acerogami Lounge building. The adaptive re-use of four historic buildings includes live/work lofts (carved out of the remnants of the Clark Hotel on the second floor of the Oxarart Building), retail boutiques, a restaurant, Acerogami cocktail lounge, and the Glass House Concert Hall, which opened in 1996 and laid the foundations for Pomona's well-known live music scene.   

night-time sidewalk view of the Oxarart Building dominated by the ultramodern Acerogami storefront sculptural facade and hanging tea lights from a lit streetlamp and jacaranda tree, an Art Walk hanging banner can be seen near the top of the 2nd story

Glass House and Acerogami

Part of the Oxarart Block, the Glass House Concert Hall opened in 1996 and laid the foundations for Pomona's well-known live music scene. Since then, it has become a nationally recognized proving-ground for emerging alt rock musicians. The Glass House bar, Acerogami, is a "showcase for fresh indie rock and indie pop gems" on the weekends, and operates as a lounge during the week.

streetview from the northwest of the Wright Brothers Building, in cloudy daytime with two cars parked in front, angled, ground-level retail/gallery frontage, and upper stories with multi-paned windows and red with white vertical panels

The Wright Brothers Building

The former home of the Wright Brothers & Rice Furniture Showroom was converted into twelve live/work loft apartments and five storefront retail units. The original wood floors of the 1918 building add character throughout. The dA Center for the Arts - the valley's largest community arts non-profit organization, established in 1976 - occupies 7,000 square feet on the ground floor, along with DBA Wine Bar and Noisebug Audio. All lofts feature large bathrooms, full kitchens, wood floors, high beamed ceilings, central heating and air, and the original freight elevator still provides access. 

 

a large wide background image of a streetscene in the Pomona Arts Colony with people walking and crowded storefronts and trees

Second Saturday Art Walk

The Downtown Pomona Second Saturday Artwalk is held on the second Saturday of each month from 5 PM to 7 PM throughout numerous shops, restaurants, galleries, and lofts in the Pomona Arts Colony. The Art Walk has been a tradition in Downtown Pomona for twenty years.

northern-angle view of the small 2-story office building at 401 S Main in Pomona, CA, with large single-pane windows in a simple modern style, entrance ramps and glass front door, landscaped with small shrub trees and ivy with a white sky

The Civic Center

The Civic Center is home to a number of offices and features multiple levels with a great deal of natural lighting in each unique office space. 

The Mission-style facade of the Armory Building in Pomona, CA., which is really just a large converted house, with wide entrance stairway and palm tree and cactus, rich brown wooden entrance doors and dark green trim paneling w/inset privacy windows

The Armory Lofts

The Armory Building is home to some very unique art lofts. Occupied by downtown artists, these live/work lofts features large, open floor plans in a historic building, with a community outdoor area for the residents. 

a typical outdoor view of Union Square and the painted mural Union Building on 2nd Street in downtown Pomona, CA, with popups and pedestrians enjoying a 2nd Saturday Artwalk

Public Art

Almost anywhere you turn in the Pomona Arts Colony, you'll find interesting examples of public artwork - another Arteco initiative. Whether on the side of a building, painted on a mailbox, a sculpture on a fountain, or a free-standing mural at the corner of an intersection, public art is visible down almost every street.

steetview from the southwest of the Tate Building at 4th and Thomas in Pomona, CA. in the early evening with streetlighting and the ground-level corner retail space brightly lit, floor to ceiling windows and industrial multi-paned windows on the upper floor, unlit.

The Tate Building

The 1930's and 1940's home of Tate Cadillac and Dayco Printing was fully renovated into retail, restaurant, and creative office spaces. It is now the home of Arteco Partners' corporate headquarters.

The stagger-stepped deco frontage of the Opera Garage Building on Thomas Street in Pomona, CA. with strong vertical accents painted dark gray and white base-wall, featuring large, louvred multi-paned windows and a ground floor retail frontage with ample windows and cars and trucks angle-parked in front

Opera Garage

The Art Deco and Streamline Modern facade of the Opera Garage was repaired by Arteco Partners, as was the amazing wide span barrel truss ceiling on the second floor. The Opera Garage was named as such because it was the site of Pomona's first Opera House, then subsequently a car garage. On any given weekend, the two nightclubs that are now in the Opera Garage attract about 1,300 people to downtown Pomona.

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