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From Rust Belt to Artist Belt To view an online version of this report, From Rust Belt to Artist Belt: Challenges and Opportunities in Rust Belt Cities, please visit http://www.cpacbiz.org/business/CreativeCompass.shtml. From Rust Belt to Artist Belt: Challenges and Opportunities in Rust Belt Cities From Rust Belt to Artist Belt Challenges and Opportunities in Rust Belt Cities December 2008 Community Partnership for Arts and Culture • 1900 Superior Avenue, Suite 130 Cleveland, OH 44114 • 216.575.0331 • [email protected] www.cpacbiz.org To view an online version of this report, From Rust Belt to Artist Belt: Challenges and Opportunities in Rust Belt Cities, please visit http://www.cpacbiz.org/business/CreativeCompass.shtml. From Rust Belt to Artist Belt: Challenges and Opportunities in Rust Belt Cities Table of Contents Forward and Acknowledgements .............................................................. 3 Executive Summary .................................................................................... 7 Introduction and General Overview ....................................................... 14 Rust Belt Challenges ................................................................................. 19 Rust Belt Assets ......................................................................................... 26 What Artists Can Offer Rust Belt Cities ................................................ 31 What Rust Belt Cities Can Offer Artists ................................................ 37 Recommendations for Future Policy ...................................................... 42 Recommendations for Organizational Action ....................................... 48 From Rust Belt to Artist Belt................................................................... 49 Stories from the Artist Belt: Mark Barone’s Creative Crusade .............................................................50 Artists Set Up House in an Urban Corridor ........................................52 Art Institute Turns Housing Developer in Detroit ..............................54 Building the New Economy of Upstate New York ...............................56 Theatre Breathes New Life into Old Square ........................................58 About Community Partnership for Arts and Culture ........................... 60 End Notes .................................................................................................. 62 From Rust Belt to Artist Belt: Challenges and Opportunities in Rust Belt Cities To view an online version of this report, From Rust Belt to Artist Belt: Challenges and Opportunities in Rust Belt Cities, please visit http://www.cpacbiz.org/business/CreativeCompass.shtml. From Rust Belt to Artist Belt: Challenges and Opportunities in Rust Belt Cities Foreward and Acknowledgments A project that stalled three years ago has become one of the most ambitious and rewarding programs that the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC) has undertaken to date. Creative Compass, the program umbrella for From Rust Belt to Artist Belt (RB2AB), was developed after CPAC’s work with local banks on launching a low- interest, working-capital loan program for artists suddenly ended. The banking professionals CPAC worked with on the loan project were helpful and genuinely interested in the concept; however, the banks were witnessing a significant rise in the number of bankruptcies being filed. The increase was the result of people rushing to file before new, more stringent federal bankruptcy laws were enacted. This disturbing fact, coupled with the banking industry’s limited experience with providing working-capital loans to artists, led to the suspen- sion of the project. CPAC’s staff evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of our initial efforts. That led us back to a core issue associated with all financial lending: the value of collateral backing from the person requesting the loan. The collateral many artists bring to the bargaining table is talent, skill and experience. Lenders understandably have difficulty evaluating intellectual capital as a collateral source for assuring financial loans. Developing traditional types of collateral for artists became CPAC’s new focus. Deena Epstein, a colleague at the George Gund Foundation, recommended we look at the work being done in Paducah, KY. The Paducah Artist Relocation Program was providing financing opportunities for artists to purchase low-cost homes and property in a rundown section of the city. The idea was that artists would improve the housing stock and become homeowners in the neighborhood which, city officials hoped, would help to reinvigorate the neighborhood. In fact, it was working – and it was developing equity for artists, as well as a form of traditional banking collateral. From that point, CPAC began researching the possibilities of artist homeownership in Cleveland, led by our talented staff program manager, Seth Beattie, with management expertise from vice president Megan Van Voorhis. First, we discovered that over 125 local, state and federal incen- tive, educational and low-interest loan programs for bringing houses up to code for purchase or for purchasing qualified homes were available to various income categories that included artists. Then we learned from data collected in a national survey CPAC conducted of visual, perform- ing, literary and media artists that Cleveland had many of the positive factors artists take into account when deciding where to live and work. In particular, this included low cost of living, strong arts and culture infrastructure and close proximity to major markets. However, we also discovered several barriers to artist homeownership in Cleveland including a lack of information, education and connectivity between artists and the community development field. In response, the three components of Creative Compass – RB2AB, the Housing and Commercial Space From Rust Belt to Artist Belt: Challenges and Opportunities in Rust Belt Cities Foreward and Acknowledgments Exposition and the development of a one-stop information website dedicated to the region’s creative workforce – began to take shape to help artists overcome these barriers to homeown- ership. A number of advisors from inside and outside the arts-and-culture sector helped us design and launch the first phase of Creative Compass: the RB2AB conference. The purpose of RB2AB was to inform local lenders, community developers, real-estate companies, commercial and residential developers, elected and appointed officials and civic leaders about best practices that could integrate artists into a Rust Belt community’s development goals – best practices that recruited artists not as a panacea, but as uniquely qualified partners, for neighborhood develop- ment. The strong support and professional advice CPAC received from its Creative Compass Events Steering Committee was critical to producing the unique content of RB2AB. Steering Committee members included Angelica Pozo, ceramic artist and chair of CPAC’s Programs and Public Policy Committee; Carrie Carpenter, vice president and director of Public Affairs, Charter One Bank; Colleen Gilson, executive director, Cleveland Neighborhood Development Coalition; Sarah Gyorki, executive director, Arts Collinwood; Chloe Hopson, executive director, Passport Project; Tracey Nichols, director, Economic Development, City of Cleveland; Christine Nelson, director, Business Attraction, Team NEO; Cuyahoga County Treasurer James Rokakis; Cleveland Councilwoman Sabra Pierce Scott, Ward 8; and Michael Taylor, executive director and president, National City Community Development Corp. Their counsel was central to making RB2AB an event of national scope and interest. The response to RB2AB from the community development sector, property developers, real- estate firms, lending institutions, arts organizations and artists was gratifying. Over 140 people from 11 states attended the May 14, 2008 conference. The outstanding attendance for RB2AB was predicated on its extraordinary group of local and national speakers, including Mark Bar- one, consultant to Syracuse University’s Engagement Initiatives program and founder of the Paducah Artist Relocation Program; Robert Brown, director, Cleveland City Planning Commis- sion; Patricia Cirillo, president and CEO, Cypress Research Group; Amy Green Deines, associate professor of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy and board chair, Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit; Marc Folk, executive director, Arts Commission of Greater Toledo; Brian Friedman, executive director, Northeast Shores Development Corporation; Matthew Galluzzo, district manager for Friendship Development Associates’ Penn Avenue Arts District; Nathan Guequierre, senior planner, URS Corporation, Milwaukee’s Sustainability Group; Wendy Holmes, vice president of consulting and resource development, Artspace USA; Barbara Koenen, direc- tor, Chicago Artists Resource; Lillian Kuri, director of special projects, The Cleveland Founda- tion; Ann Markusen, Ph.D., professor of urban planning and policy and director of the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs; Jeremy Nowak, president and CEO, The Reinvestment Fund; Greg Peckham, executive From Rust Belt to Artist Belt: Challenges and Opportunities in Rust Belt Cities Foreward and Acknowledgments director, Cleveland Public Art; Judilee Reed, executive director, Leveraging Investments in Cre- ativity; Esther Robinson, founder, ArtHome; James