Artspace - Building Better Communities Through The Arts 

Like many Artspace properties, the Karcher Hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Community rallies to revitalize  

downtown Waukegan, Ill.

 

Door-to-door campaigns raising thousands of dollars from citizens committed to revitalizing the city in which they live - Biweekly contributions from one City Councilmember's paycheck for the past few months - Strategizing sessions and phone calls and creative campaigns led by volunteers. These are a few initiatives of the people of Waukegan, Ill., who are determined to make Karcher Artspace Lofts into a reality and jumpstart the recreation of a sense of hope and economic vitality for their city. The planning and fundraising is almost over. But the City's revitalization is just beginning.

 

In the heart of the once-vibrant community of Waukegan, Ill., overlooking Lake Michigan, sits the burned out shell of the Karcher Hotel. The hotel that has been vacant since a Christmas Day fire in 1984 is the site of what will be Karcher Artspace Lofts, a mixed-use arts facility that will be the catalyst for further community growth.     

 

Waukegan citizens brandish an intense sense of civic pride - and for good reason. Though challenged, the City of Waukegan maintains several undeniable assets. It's located directly next to the lake; it's equidistant between Chicago and Milwaukee; it has a train running to Chicago; and its people are committed to revitalizing the City's downtown.

 

The first contact with Artspace came in 2006 from Teddy Anderson, who at the time was the Executive Director of Waukegan Main Street, a nonprofit community organization sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which helps cities and towns throughout the country focus on revitalization of their downtown neighborhoods.   

   

After five years of tireless community efforts, led by Jane Waller and a large group of engaged volunteers, the project is close to being ready for construction. The building's interior will be completely renovated to create 36 units of affordable live/work space for artists and their families plus 2,700 square feet of ground-floor retail and community space for arts-friendly businesses and nonprofit organizations. The renovation will also include a two-story community room, an outdoor patio, and open gallery space on each residential level.   

      

The $13.7 million project is scheduled to go into construction in late 2011 and open the following year, and Waukegan's citizens painstakingly raised more than $180,000 of that total. "What's exciting to see is the formation of a kind of leadership that can be parallel to city government - interested citizens who are trying to make hard projects happen and are finding ways to do that," says Heidi Kurtze, Artspace's Director of Property Development. "More than the true dollars, it's that community-building piece that is a predictor of success for the project and for the people of Waukegan."

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Artspace receives major support for 'creative placemaking' projects

 

Artspace Projects has received a pair of major grants to support its new creative placemaking projects in New York and Honolulu, from ArtPlace, a new national funder.   

 

The grants, two of 34 awarded by ArtPlace in its first round of funding, will provide $1 million in capital support for El Barrio's Artspace (PS109), an Artspace project in the East Harlem district of New York City, and $300,000 to support planning for an Artspace project now in predevelopment in Honolulu.

 

ArtPlace is an initiative of 11 leading foundations working in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts and seven federal agencies. Its aim is to drive revitalization across the country by putting the arts at the center of economic development.

 

"Over the last 30 years, Artspace has championed the once radical idea that artists living on the edge of poverty and chronically underfunded arts organizations can leverage transformative social change," says Artspace President Kelley Lindquist. "Our work has repeatedly shown how targeted arts investments can advance a multitude of community goals - including affordable housing, job creation, safer streets, transit oriented development, and historic preservation."

 

The foundations that joined forces to create ArtPlace are the Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Ford Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Rasmuson Foundation, The Robina Foundation, and an anonymous donor. In addition to the NEA, federal partners are the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Education and Transportation, along with leadership from the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Domestic Policy Council.  

 

Federal partners do not provide funding to ArtPlace but participate in the ArtPlace Presidents' Council and Operating Committee meetings, ensuring alignment between high-priority federal investments and policy development and ArtPlace grants.

 

The PS109 project will transform the former Public School 109 in East Harlem, into a mixed-use facility containing 90 units of affordable housing for artists and their families and 10,000 square feet of community space for arts and cultural organizations. The project, a partnership between Artspace and El Barrio's Operation Fightback, a nonprofit community development organization based in East Harlem, is expected to go into construction in December.

 

The Honolulu project will create a multi-purpose cultural facility that helps sustain and nurture native Hawaiian artists and arts organizations, provides affordable artist housing, and helps connect Honolulu-based artists and arts organizations with peers and constituents across the state of Hawai'i. It will be developed by Artspace in partnership with the PA'I Foundation, whose mission is to preserve and perpetuate Hawaiian cultural tradition for future generations.

 

"ArtPlace is accelerating creative placemaking, where cities and towns are using the arts and other creative assets to shape their social, physical and economic futures," said Rocco Landesman, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts. "This approach brings new partners to the table to support the arts and recognizes the arts as vital drivers of community revitalization and development."

 

"Economic development historically has been about bagging the buffalo-competing for the big employer to move operations to your city," said Carol Coletta, President of ArtPlace. "But now we know the economic development game is all about how you deploy local assets to develop, attract and keep talent. So why would you not deploy every asset you have-including artists and the arts-to do that? That's what ArtPlace is all about."

 

"ArtPlace represents a new paradigm," says Luis A. Ubiñas, President of The Ford Foundation and Chairman of the ArtPlace Presidents' Council. "It brings to the arts the kind of economic development thinking that has long been pursued for attracting and developing businesses, big and small, across the country. ArtPlace's integrated, interwoven approach has the potential to kick-start local economies and transform communities. The arts can play a central role spurring local economic activity."

 

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