Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre

22°20′05″N 114°09′56″E / 22.3346°N 114.1656°E / 22.3346; 114.1656

The Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCAC; Chinese: 賽馬會創意藝術中心) is a multi-disciplinary arts centre in Shek Kip Mei, Hong Kong, housed in a converted nine-storey factory estate.

JCCAC was established through the co-operation of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) and the Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC) and is a self-financed subsidiary of Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). Conversion of the building was funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust which was given the naming rights, and was supported by the Home Affairs Bureau.^[3] (now replaced by the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau). The JCCAC officially opened on 26 September 2008 as a self-financed registered charity.

• 31 October 2005, JCCAC opening ceremony was held.
• 21 November 2006, tenant applications were opened.^[4]
• January 2007, applications outnumbered places 5:1. JCCAC selected 112 applicants, six arts organisations, 88 artists or arts groups and the remainder being students or graduates of arts institutes.^[5]
• 28 February 2008, completion of the building conversion of JCCAC.
• March 2008, the first tenants moved into the centre.
• 26 September 2008, JCCAC was officially opened.

The building housing the JCCAC was formerly known as the Shek Kip Mei Flatted Factory Building or the Shek Kip Mei Factory Estate. The Factory Estate was built in 1977 and comprised one nine-storey block accommodating 390 factory units.^[6] It was a facility of housing cottage and local light industries in the late 1970s and was owned by the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA). It fell into disuse particularly due to a steep decline in the local garment industry in 1990s in Hong Kong when owners started to move their businesses to mainland China. The building was vacant from May 2001.^[7]

The JCCAC was the first adaptive reuse attempt in Hong Kong to convert a decommissioned factory building into a creative arts centre.^[8] The interior of the centre retains architectural features of factories (architecturally it is reminiscent of London's Tate Modern). The conversion was awarded 'Medal of the Year of Hong Kong' in HKIA Annual Awards 2008 by the Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA).^[9]

The design aims to strike a fine balance between new and old features in order to achieve integration with the surrounding neighbourhood and to preserve the inherent characteristics of the old factory building.

The Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre is currently managed by the Hong Kong Baptist University under an agreement with the Hong Kong Government, in partnership with the Hong Kong Arts Development Council and the Hong Kong Arts Centre. The University received a total of HK$94.4 million (HK$69.4 million + HK$25 million) funding donation from the Hong Kong Jockey Club's Charities Trust (JCCT) in 2005 and 2007 for renovating the vacated factory building and disbursing part of the start-up costs. The Centre is managed by an HKBU subsidiary company with charitable status, namely the Hong Kong Creative Arts Centre Limited which is operated on self-financing basis.

The Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre provides a total of 140 studio units (most unit measuring 300 square ft.) at affordable rent encompassing a wide spectrum of the various tenants’ arts including painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, art-tech, illustration, music, dance, community art and art education. The Centre also has supporting facilities such as a Black Box Theatre, two exhibition galleries, and a central courtyard for organisation of programmes and activities. In the Central Courtyard of the building (Level-1), a few rental spaces are reserved for shops and eateries, including a café and a Chinese tea house, etc.

• Studio inside art centre
• Lift lobby
• Common Space in Level 7
• The entrance of the Black Box Theatre in JCCAC.

As a pioneer project, in the first couple of years of its opening, "Artists complained about bureaucratic management, unusable public space, inadequate publicity and poor facilities. Visitors were unhappy to find many studios closed as a result of some artists saying they simply wanted a quiet place to work."^[10] JCCAC has since achieved better expectations management through closer collaborations regularly organising social gatherings with tenants and offering guided tours for the public.^{[11] [12]}

"Artists are unhappy about a sudden 20 per cent rent increase for studio space. All occupants of the factory turned artist incubator would have to pay a new elevated rate of HK$7.80 per square foot – up from HK$6.50 per sq ft for many – once their contracts come due. Although the centre had warned tenants last year(2011) they would have to pay HK$7.50 per sq ft starting this year(2012), the back-to-back rent rises took many by surprise. 'I am not against increasing the rent if it's necessary,' said tenant Mac Mak Keung-wai of the A&M Art Workshop. 'I just feel that this is a commercially driven decision and that it strays from the original vision of the centre.'"^[13] Despite such views, JCCAC’s rent is notably lower than market rate – for example the rental index published by the government showed that the average rent of private flatted factories in January 2012 was HK$11.30 per sq ft ^[14] , which meant that JCCAC’s rent at HK$7.80 per sq ft was more than 30% lower than the market average.

• Public factory estates in Hong Kong
• Shek Kip Mei Estate
• Cattle Depot Artist Village
• Fo Tan
• West Kowloon Cultural District
• Hong Kong Arts Centre
• Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre
• Hong Kong Fringe Club
• 798 Art Zone
• M+

• Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCAC)
• Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC)
• Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre Opening 26/9/2008 (Youtube)