At a point in the 1960s when many considered the South End unsafe and rundown, Royal Cloyd envisioned a mecca for the city’s artistic community.

As founding director of the Boston Center for the Arts, he helped convert a series of unused and underappreciated buildings into a campus of theaters, galleries, and studios.

“A lot of people said it wouldn’t work, that people wouldn’t visit the South End because it was too dangerous,’’ Mr. Cloyd told the Globe in 1980, when the center held a 10th birthday party. “But it’s worked beyond our wildest dreams.’’

Mr. Cloyd died of cardiac arrest Feb. 23 in Havasu Regional Medical Center in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. He was 86 and in retirement had divided his time between North Berwick, Maine, and Mexico.

“The BCA has been supporting working artists for over 40 years because of Royal Harrison Cloyd’s vision and tireless work in founding this organization,’’ said Veronique Le Melle, the organization’s current executive director.

Mr. Cloyd believed in the neighborhood so much that he moved his young family from a Beacon Hill apartment to a house in Union Park in the South End in the years before the arts center began to emerge.

“At the time the South End was decaying,’’ said his son, Aaron of North Berwick.

He recalled that when Mr. Cloyd and his wife applied for a loan to buy a home, “the bank manager did not understand why they would want to live there.’’

His parents saw “beautiful Victorian townhouses that could be restored,’’ Aaron Cloyd said. “So my dad, along with others, helped restore the neighborhood. They got the city to stop tearing down buildings.’’

Mr. Cloyd encouraged the city to purchase a 4-acre parcel of land that once was home to a flower market and included the Cyclorama, which was built in 1884 and contained a painting of the Battle of Gettysburg by Paul Philippoteaux.