LAST THURSDAY NIGHT saw the opening of the long-in-progress Tashiro Kaplan Artist Lofts, 50 live-work spaces and four ground-level gallery storefronts.

The project, four years in the making, involved the city, King County, national nonprofit developers Artspace Projects, the Pioneer Square Community Association, and other assorted characters. It included rehabbing two existing buildings (the Tashiro and the Kaplan) and adding three new floors to the combined structure.

The result: Some wonderful views, from rent-controlled spaces rented only to folk who can prove (1) they’re artists (architects and interior designers don’t count), and (2) earning less than a certain income level.

The city, for its effort, gets 50 new households, all of a more or less “respectable” type, in one of the downtown core’s last down-n’-out pockets. (Remember the old line about how “artists are the shock troops of gentrification”?)

The rest of us got to see the oft-amazing works by the artists in residence.

And we get to keep these creative types living right here in town, instead of having to split for a lower-rent locale.

So: What’s the most appropriately festive way to fete this joyous occasion? With some butoh, of course.