Purchased
nearly five years ago through Highland Armory Realty Trust by Joseph
and Nabil Sater, owners of the successful bar and rock club The Middle
East in Cambridge, the building was re-imagined by Single Speed Design,
whom served as award-winning architects on the project. The building
now houses nine arts organizations, including Hi-N-Dry Music Studio,
Mark Sandman Music Project, Moving Celebrations, Forward Web
Development, Case AVP Photography, Daniel Ostergren Visual Arts, the
University of the Middle East Project and the Actors' Shakespeare
Project. The last tenant is the Arts at the Armory itself, functioning
as a non-profit community organization for the benefit of Greater
Somerville.

"The Armory has been a labor of love for so many
people", said Debra McLaughlin, Chair of the Center's Board of
Directors. "We are thrilled to have this beautiful building formally
dedicated to the arts and look forward to it being a beehive of
artistic, cultural and community activity."

The Armory was
erected in 1903 by George A. Moore for the Somerville Light Infantry of
the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. For nearly seventy years
afterward, it also housed the Massachusetts National Guard. Since then
the space had been used intermittently by some community organizations,
but remained largely vacant. The new Armory now provides a venue for
various visual arts, dance, theater and musical performances, alongside
studio spaces for artists, a cafe, galleries, two live-and-work artists
units, adult art education classes as well as arts afterschool programs
for children and youth.

Despite extensive renovations, the
preservation of unique features such as the Armory's drill hall, spiral
staircases, stairwells, turrets, and other important architectural
elements ensured that the building's historical integrity was not
compromised.