ASHEVILLE - The River Arts District Foundation is developing a $17 million project that will turn two industrial buildings into a "creative campus," which will include studio space for artists, a welcome center, space for the theatrical arts and shared equipment.
The foundation is in the first phase of the project, which is acquiring the property, River Arts District Artists President Jeffrey Burroughs said. The foundation is under contract to purchase the buildings, which are located in the 100 block of Lyman Street, for $7.5 million. The foundation expects the upfitting of the building to cost around $10 million.
The project is relying on a variety of funding sources, including grant funding, donations and partnerships with other organizations.
"This is something that our community has dreamed of for decades," Burroughs said. "This is the right property at the right location at the right time."
The first building is over 10,000 square feet and will serve as the "welcome center," as well as a flex space for live performances, Burroughs said.
Visitors would gather information there about tours, events, and attractions in the area. The second building, more than 25,000 square feet, will include a space for ceramic arts, glass, fiber, woodworking and metal work. These crafts require expensive equipment, like kilns and forges, and the foundation wants to ensure that none of that equipment ends up in the floodplain, Burroughs said.
"It's going to be a game-changer, not just for artists that are creating, but also creating workforce development programs, apprenticeships, creative manufacturing to help build out wholesale markets," he said. "It's going to become a very centralized economic driving force for the creative community."
The center also will include classrooms and teaching spaces, a black box theater and room for the district's offices.
The proposed arts center comes two years after Tropical Storm Helene flooded the River Arts District, displacing more than 500 artists or arts businesses. Artists had spent decades building the River Arts District, Burroughs said, "and after Helene, we came really close to losing it."
"This is just how we keep it, not just for tomorrow, but for the next generation of artists and hopefully thereafter and thereafter," Burroughs said.
If there is another flood, artists would be able to store their equipment at the creative campus, which is on a hill above the floodplain, Burroughs said. RADA is working on an emergency plan that would allow artists to load up their work and drive it to the creative campus.
"We have to meet people where they are. We have artists that have said they will not go back into the floodplain. We have artists that spent decades inside of these buildings that are like homes to them, that are ready to get back to their homes," Burroughs said.
The creative campus will also help solve another problem artists in the district have faced, particularly prior to Helene: high rent.
"We've never had any ownership or stakeholdership truly in a district where the name "artists" is in it," Burroughs said.
The RADA Foundation is also partnering with RiverLink to manage the runoff in stormwater that flows through the property.
Amy Kelly, buildings chair for the RADA Foundation, said that the goal for the creative campus is not just to serve the district, but artists across Western North Carolina. While developing the campus will be a multi-year process, the initial opening could be as soon as 2028, Kelly said.
"This is an opportunity to rethink how we engage with the river as a district," Kelly said. "This is a canvas on which we're building this vision, and we'll be doing so for generations, hopefully."
Kara Fohner is the Public Safety Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Email her at kfohner@usatodayco.com or call her at 980-241-8671.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Out of Helene's wreckage, visions of arts district 'creative campus'
