Warehouse 21, (W21) is an offspring of the Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA) Teen Project that was founded in 1990 by Bob Gaylor accompanied with Bob Eggers. Chrissie Orr was the Founding Project Director. At that time, a needs assessment was completed with local teenagers and the common complaint expressed was “There is nothing to do and nowhere to go”. Due to a lack of creative services to meet their personal and social needs within the community, the CCA Teen Project was born as a youth component to the CCA – “a place to go and a place on the go”. Through the years, the youth changed the name to CCA Warehouse.

 

From 1990-1992, the CCA Warehouse started in the basement of the Armory of the Arts and moved on to various locations around town such as Carlos’s Gospel Cafe and then eventually got permission to hold events in the warehouse of CCA. In 1992, the Catellus Corp offered an older warehouse building in the Railyard located at 1614 Paseo de Peralta. It that had various separate rooms and a building shed outside that became the silk screen studio.

 

In 1993, Ana G y Reinhardt was hired as the Program Managing Director of the CCA Warehouse working with Chrissie Orr.

 

However, in 1996, due to organizational changes with the CCA on Old Pecos Trail, Ana at the time at CCA Warehouse, initiated a non-profit that became Santa Fe Teen Arts Center, Warehouse 21 as a safety net. Ana then became the Executive Director of W21. The CCA Teen Project and W21 in mutual agreement agreed to a spin-off with the vision that W21 would carry on the legacy of the popular CCA Warehouse programs. In 1996, both CCA and W21 collaborated on programs until all assets and the Railyard building lease were transferred to W21 in 1997