Metro Jacksonville

http://jacksonville.com/business/2009-10-21/story/artists_creatively_filling_vacancies_in_downtown_jacksonville_buildings

Mike Langton has a couple of retail spaces on the ground floor of his W.A. Knight Building on West Adams Street downtown. The trendy and upscale Chew Restaurant is in one of them with its tuna tartare and stuffed quail.

But the other sits vacant, as it has for eight years. So Langton is offering it up to artists at no rent. Just pay the utilities.

“I’m just trying to be supportive of downtown,” he said. “If we can get the art cooking, it’d help bring the vitality we need.”

It seems simple enough, Downtown property owners have empty spaces they can’t rent. Local artists need spaces.

And now they’re getting together. More art galleries and artists’ studios are opening in storefronts that used to sit empty, staring out at downtown streets through blank glass.

“We know that art and culture have always been a catalyst to revitalizing downtowns,” said Terry Lorince, executive director of Downtown Vision, an organization formed in 2000 by the area’s property owners. 

Downtown Vision has been holding its Art Walk for five or six years, bringing people downtown to open galleries and restaurants the first Wednesday of each month. But that’s only once a month.

“We’d been talking about what we needed to do to take art to the next level,” Lorince said. “The economy was making it difficult to lease space. And then [local artist] Jim Draper approached us and said there was a need for more working space.

“Downtown Vision knows the property owners, the Cultural Council and Draper know the artists.”

Last month, Downtown Vision held an open house. About 25 artists showed up, got maps and started walking around to look at 10 spaces that were available. Some agreements are in the works from that, Lorince said, and two new galleries are already up and running.

Although Michael Dunlap opened his Southlight Gallery at this month’s Art Walk, it won’t open for good until early next month. Southlight, which displays the work of about 18 artists, is in the Jacksonville Bank Building space that most recently housed Gold’s Gym.

He pays no rent on the 4,000-square-foot space, just utilities. But he’s also on a month-by-month agreement. If the building finds a paying tenant, Southlight will have to find a new home.

(finished at link)

How dare you post something that doesn't relate to Health care, John Mica or rail!!!!  ;)

Finally someone is thinking. Great program.

Excellent idea.  Sounds like a win win to me.

There is a space in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, called Mess Hall (messhall.org). It's a pretty great space. Almost completely artist-run. They received their space basically rent-free, and have extended the generosity of free services and events to the community. Their tenets are:

Quote from: Mess Hall, 2007
-We demand spaces run by the people who use them.
-We create the space to remix categories, experiment, and learn what we do not already know.
-Mess Hall explodes the myth of scarcity. Everyone is capable of sharing something.
-The surplus of our societies should be creatively redistributed at every level of production and consumption.
-Social interaction generates culture!
-We embrace creativity as an action without thought of profit.
-We demand spaces that promote generosity.
-Mess Hall insists on a climate of mutual trust and respect--for ourselves and those who enter our space.
-No money is exchanged inside Mess Hall. Surfing on surplus, we do not charge admission or ask for donations.
-Mess Hall functions without hierarchy or forced unity.

Anyone can propose an event to be held at Mess Hall, and only a "keyholder" can literally open the door. The space is only open when an event is taking place inside the space, which might be free yoga, a film screening, a lecture, or free sewing/needlework lessons. If I didn't have to be in Chicago for half the year, I'd devote a good portion of my time to getting something like this running in Jax. It needs to happen there.

They're doing the same thing in Brooklyn, NY, so said the NBC news tonight. Great idea.