Price of progress: Artists lose a haven

Wanted: 55,000 square feet of vacant space in Center City for lease to established artists and cooperatives serving neighborhood residents.

Oh, and yes, it would be nice if the space was available at below-market rates.

Those starving artists - banding together, settling in abandoned or vacant factories and lofts, creating art and community - have run head-on into the reality of Center City's roaring real estate market.

Seven months after Philadelphia officials told them that they were about to lose their home to the expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the artists of the Gilbert Building remain adrift on the Avenue of the Arts.

And they worry that they are running out of time.

"It's frustrating," said Gayle Isa, executive director of the Asian Arts Initiative, since 1993 an arts training ground for the Asian community centered in Chinatown. "I'm spending more time looking for a new location ...