Although an Artspace project is often the first step in a community’s plan to create an arts district, Memphis presents a different challenge: to help an existing arts district achieve a new level of vibrancy. Memphis’ South Main Historic Arts District offers boutiques, coffee shops, galleries, and restaurants, as well as noteworthy attractions like the National Civil Rights Museum.
The South Main Artspace Lofts will help facilitate change. In partnership with the City of Memphis and the Hyde Family Foundations, Artspace will transform a historic three-story warehouse and an adjacent parking lot into a mixed-use arts facility with 63 affordable live/work units for artists and their families, and community/gallery space. A permanent population of artists in South Main will energize and stimulate the entire Arts District, giving it a stronger personality than ever before.
The South Main Artspace Lofts will transform a vacant block of the neighborhood into a hub of creative activity and is part of roughly $200 million in investments to the South Main district including renovations to the National Civil Rights Museum, the Orpheum Theatre, and the Main Street to Main Street Multi-Modal Connector Project. It is clear that the South Main Arts District is changing rapidly. Creating permanent, sustainable, affordable housing for artists to live in the historic arts district is a critical need of the neighborhood.
