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Bridgeport Gets to Art of the Matter
$10 million project could turn former Read's into
artist's studio/living/gallery space
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Business New Haven
4/17/2000
By: Linda Mele
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For some people, living and working in the same space might not work terribly well. But artists are a breed apart, and the idea of living space combined with studio space is very attractive to many of them.
In addition, if the space is shared with other artists, so much the better. That's why the announcement of a $10.2 million Bridgeport project that would not only provide living/studio space but gallery, exhibition, performance and educational space is being met with considerable enthusiasm.
“Living with other artists gives one a sense of community,” says Richard Klein, a sculptor and assistant director of the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield.
Klein is one of dozens of artists - including his wife Mary Kenealy, a painter - who lived in the historic Lock Building, the 1856 former home of the Norwalk Lock Co. in Norwalk, after it was converted to living/studio space.“You're living among those with similar occupations who understand and appreciate the creative process,” Klein explains, “and since many artists have a sense of social responsibility and community awareness, their other interests are also often similar.”
Klein and his wife lived at the Lock Building for seven years before it was bought by a private developer last fall to be converted into market-rate office space.
Klein says Kenealy also lived and worked for a time in the Colt Building in Hartford, the pioneer project in Connecticut
To combine home/studio space.
“It was originally used in the 1970s as living/working space,” Klein recalls, “and today also features commercial space.”
The displaced artists in Norwalk turned to William Kraus, the Historic Lock Building Association's executive director, who in turn contacted William Halstead, property disposition manager for the city of Bridgeport, to see if the Park City had any unused buildings that might fit the needs of artists.
“Old industrial or commercial buildings are the best for conversion because of their high ceilings, huge windows and strong floors,” Kraus notes. “The clear-span spaces are what's attractive,” Klein adds.
“Mary and I had about 1,500 square feet, of which about a third was our living space. But because everything was so open, it didn't seem at all cramped or small,” Klein recalls.
“That's the beauty of it,” he adds. “You can design it to fit your own needs.”
Among other available properties, Halstead showed Kraus the five-story former D.M. Read's building on the corner of Broad and John streets, which houses about 110,000 square feet.
Halstead and Kraus then met with William Finch, president of the Bridgeport Economic Development Corp. (BEDCO), after which they contacted Artspace Projects Inc. of Minneapolis, one of the nation's leading non-profit developers of affordable art space.
According to Halstead, a $75,000 grant from the Melville Charitable Trust and $50,000 received from BEDCO, the Greater Bridgeport Area Foundation, the city of Bridgeport, the Downtown Special Services District, the United Illuminating Co. and Chase Manhattan Bank will help fund a feasibility study being conducted by Artspace which, after touring the building, declared it “ideal” for artists' living/studio lofts and associated uses.
Kraus says similar projects have been developed all over the world, and Artspace - founded 20 years ago by the Minneapolis Arts Commission “to counteract the cycle of artists pioneering a building/location only to be forced out once the area improved as a result of the life and activity that artists help Create” - has developed similar projects. These include:
n Frogtown Family Lofts in St. Paul, Minn., which opened in 1992 in a renovated two-and-a-half-story brick warehouse.
n The Calhoun Building in Minneapolis, which opened in 1996. This was the first Artspace project to encompass both for-profit and non-profit arts organizations. The six-story brick building provides office, performance, rehearsal and studio space for arts organizations and artists.
n The Spinning Plate Artist Lofts in Pittsburgh, a former automobile dealership, is now home to 37 home/studio work spaces.
Previously known as the Constantin Pontiac Building, the project is an ideal example of how a neglected building can be turned into vibrant, useful space with a little vision and creativity.
The complex also features exhibition space on the first floor in the former auto showroom.
Artspace has also worked on similar
projects in Galveston, Tex., Portland, Ore., Reno, Nev., Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and Hollywood, Fla. as well as a host of projects throughout Minnesota.
“They're the perfect partners for this,” Kraus says, “because it's what they do.”
The Read's building has been vacant for more than 20 years and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Built in 1925, it was the regional department-store chain's flagship store and corporate headquarters.
If all goes as planned, it will be converted into about 60 home/studio lofts and include art-related retail and public spaces.
“It is expected that the completed project will not only rejuvenate an abandoned building, but also help rejuvenate the entire Read's/Arcade block and Bridgeport's historic downtown,” Kraus says.
Kraus says Bridgeport previously identified arts and entertainment development as a key strategy for revitalizing downtown. This project would fit in with the relocation of the Polka Dot Playhouse, the relocation of Housatonic Community College and its nationally-known Bert Chernow modern art
collection, the Ballpark at Harbor Yard (home to the Bridgeport Bluefish), the proposed indoor sports arena and the planned
renovation of the Downtown Cabaret Theater and the Poli Majestic and Poli Palace movie theaters.
“For Bridgeport to have a great downtown it needs to get people to live downtown,” Klein observes.
“Fairfield County has a tight real-estate market and many places that might be suitable for artists aren't affordable,” he adds.
Klein says he and Kenealy won't themselves be needing the Read's space if it is developed because they were lucky and found “the perfect space” in Norwalk.
“We wanted to stay in Norwalk,” Klein says, “and we looked for more than a year before we found the only affordable and suitable space in the city.”
For them, that perfect space was “an oddball building built in the 1920s that was a storefront with attached apartment in aresidential neighborhood.”
While it suits their needs, Klein says they nevertheless miss the feeling of community they had at the Lock Building.
“It was a wonderful place, and if Read's is developed in a similar fashion, it will be a wonderful place, too, because of the atmosphere and the character of the building,” Klein says.
BEDCO's Finch says the project is based on the “SoHo principle.
“These kinds of spaces were first developed in New York's SoHo district,” Finch explains, “and have been successfully imitated all over the world.
“Housing can be expensive here,” Finch adds, “but when combined with working space in a project like this, it solves the artists' affordable-space problem and the city's abandoned-building and blight problem. It can be a win-win situation for
everyone.”
“There's nothing like a creative community of artists living and working together,” Kraus says. He adds that there's an ineffable dynamism generated by those who enjoy knowing they have a kindred spirits close by who can share the ups and downs of
their profession.
“We're not sure exactly what the [Artspace] study will show,” Halstead says, “but we're confident there's a need for this kind of space, and we think the Read's building can satisfy that need.”
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