If you’ve joined us for a First Fridays reception, an artist talk, or a public art unveiling, you’ve seen firsthand that SLOMA has become much more than an art museum: we are the cultural heart of San Luis Obispo County’s vibrant arts community.
But our beloved home at 1010 Broad Street can no longer keep pace with our growth. Our cozy space simply can’t support the caliber of exhibitions and programs our community has come to expect.
As we expand our reach to welcome more residents and visitors, we’re also expanding our vision of what SLOMA can be. The time to branch out is now.
Welcome to the New San Luis Obispo Museum of Art
Imagine What’s Possible
Expanding from its historic home at 1010 Broad Street, the Museum will bring together three Higuera Street storefronts (778, 782, and 786) to form a 24,000-square-foot campus—bridging Mission Plaza and the vibrant downtown core with art and community.
Our historic home at 1010 Broad will be retained and reimagined as a dedicated Education Center.
What This Expansion Will Offer
World Class Exhibitions
With nearly triple the current exhibition area, the expanded Museum will, for the first time, be able to host major traveling and co-curated exhibitions, while continuing to champion regional talent.
Partnerships with peer institutions will allow SLOMA to share costs and visibility, bringing nationally-recognized art to San Luis Obispo, and making world-class exhibitions accessible to community members who might not otherwise have the opportunity to experience them.
Arts Education For All
Transforming the 1010 Broad Street building into a dedicated education space will more than double SLOMA’s impact as an educational resource—reviving hands-on art learning that has largely disappeared from local schools. The space will continue to host curated exhibitions, linking the two buildings programmatically and creating a dynamic Cultural Corridor campus. It will also make it possible to bring back SLOMA’s beloved summer art camps that have inspired generations of SLOcals.
The new Education Center will provide a permanent home for expanded programs including field trips, art camps, teacher trainings, and community workshops—serving thousands of students each year while fostering lifelong learning for adults and families across San Luis Obispo County.
A Community Space in the Heart of Downtown
The expansion includes a versatile indoor gathering hall and outdoor patio overlooking historic Mission Plaza, designed to accommodate artist talks, small performances, civic dialogues, and community celebrations. These flexible spaces will serve as a cultural commons for residents and visitors while generating additional operating income to secure SLOMA’s future.
Separated by a quick walk along San Luis Obispo Creek or through Mission Plaza, SLOMA’s two facilities will serve as a critically needed anchor on Higuera Street and a front door to the Cultural Corridor, drawing consistent, year-round pedestrian activity that will also benefit surrounding restaurants, retailers, cultural partners, and hotels.
Expansion Q & A
SLOMA’s new home on Higuera is a short walk to our current home as well as our cultural partners. Located around the corner at 778, 782, and 786 Higuera Street, the existing façade is well known to locals: The Network and two adjacent buildings have housed restaurants, clothing stores, and art galleries over the years. With access via the bustling Higuera Street sidewalk as well as the creekside patio and walkway, the new location is primed to attract more visitors than ever before while serving as a portal into SLO’s arts and culture corridor.
After completing a comprehensive feasibility study in 2023, we determined that demolishing our existing facility and rebuilding to meet the Museum’s operational needs would be prohibitively expensive. In contrast, repurposing an existing structure will cost about half as much as new construction, while also revitalizing a historic building in the heart of downtown.
This adaptive reuse approach will also significantly reduce the project’s carbon footprint, preserve the character and scale of the historic downtown, and deliver a fully ADA-accessible, energy-efficient facility designed with the flexibility to meet future needs.
SLOMA’s Expansion Campaign consists of two distinct phases.
Phase I: Construction
- Over 5,000 square feet of exhibition space (3x our current exhibition space)
- Climate-controlled galleries, artwork storage, and preparation space
- Flexible multi-use spaces and a creekside patio perfect for event rentals, community celebrations, and expanded public programming
- Fully accessible public and staff spaces
- Reimagining 1010 Broad into a dedicated space for arts education for kids and adults, more than doubling our current capacity
Phase II: Purchase & Endowment
- Purchasing our new building
- Establishing an endowment for sustaining SLOMA’s future
SLOMA’s current facility at 1010 Broad Street will be retained and become a dedicated Education Center, allowing the reintroduction of past youth programs like summer camps and after-school classes, as well as offering expanded youth and adult programming to meet the growing needs of San Luis Obispo County. We project the new dedicated space will more than double our capacity for educational programming for kids and adults alike.
The space will continue to host rotating murals and curated exhibitions, including exhibitions featuring the work of those participating in our art classes, linking SLOMA’s two facilities programmatically and creating a dynamic Cultural Corridor campus.
Across the nation, libraries and museums are emerging as vital anchors of community life, providing the social infrastructure that helps people connect, learn, and imagine together. They invigorate downtowns, fuel local economies, and give residents a sense of belonging that digital life cannot replace. SLOMA’s new home on Higuera will have a positive impact on our community, particularly on Downtown SLO:
- In a sea of restaurants and retail stores, the museum would help rebalance Downtown SLO, introducing a spark of creativity to the economic core and giving residents and visitors a reason to visit downtown year-round
- SLOMA has the potential to significantly add to SLO County public finances with increased visibility and visitor traffic. In 2024, arts and culture visitor activity contributed more than $6.7M in transient occupancy taxes and $1.5M in local sales taxes (per the 2025 Economic Impact of Arts & Culture Report).
- Research from Americans for the Arts shows arts patrons spend an additional $25–$70 per visit on local food, retail, and lodging. With a projected annual attendance of nearly 110,000, SLOMA is poised to have a positive impact on our retail neighbors.
- The museum’s presence in the heart of Downtown SLO can promote the cultural scene, attract a wider demographic of shoppers and visitors, and further realize the long-held downtown development plan, in concert with our cultural corridor partners
- The expanded museum will advance the City of SLO’s Major Goals (FY 2025–27) for Cultural Vitality; Economic Resilience; and Fiscal Sustainability; and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
At our new home on Higuera, SLOMA will be well poised to serve as a visible and accessible portal into SLO’s burgeoning arts and cultural corridor, infusing the economic vitality of arts and culture tourism into the core of Downtown SLO.
Our mission will not change: we will always be a place for our community to come and be inspired, to create, and to find deeper insight and connection. Expanding SLOMA means even more of the services and programs you’ve grown to love, including:
- More amazing exhibitions featuring visuals artists from around the corner and around the world
- More free public art programs
- Bringing back our summer art camps for kids
- Hosting art classes and workshops for patrons of all ages to find their artistic voice
- Expanded programming to county-wide audiences
- A new, central space for the community to gather and share their love of art
Thanks to early leadership gifts and multi-year pledges, we’re getting closer and closer to our Phase 1 goal!
If you’re interested in helping us create a place to find joy and connection in ways only the arts can inspire, contact SLOMA’s Executive Director, Leann Standish, at lstandish@sloma.org or call us at (805) 543-8562.
Yes! Naming opportunities can be found here.
SLOMA is proud to partner with RRM Design Group, NK Builders, BMA Mechanical, and Thoma Electric to bring this project to life. We want to give extra special thanks to our Volunteer Campaign Task Force:
Clint Pearce, Task Force Chair
Ermina Karim
Erik Justesen
Howard Carroll
Beth Marino
Tim Tillman
Leann Standish
Emma Saperstein
SLOMA’s Expansion Project is supported by the following sponsors.
Thank you for your generosity and belief in this project!
$1,000,000+
Ty and Trudie Safreno
The Harold J. Miossi Trust
Forbes Family
Barbara Renshaw
$500,000–$999,999
City of San Luis Obispo
Davis Family
$250,000–$499,999
Bill & Linda Thoma and Jeff & Alexis Thoma
$100,000–$249,000
Ken and Martha Schwartz Fund
Annie Mohler and Bill Moseley
$50,000–$99,999
Jacqui Ghosin
Mike and Shirley Ritter
Jeanette and Jim Efird
Linda and Wayne Lewis
David and Ann Lawrence
Barbara Bell
Laura and Pat Mullen
Amy and Ronnie Wright
$25,000–$49,999
Howard and Vicki Carroll
Diane Clausen
$10,000–$24,999
John Stone
Deb and John Spatafore
Sandi Sigurdson and Steve McGrath
Wendy and Crow White