|
|
The Covington Artisans’ Enterprise Center doesn’t look like much today. It’s a dingy, empty commercial building just off Madison Avenue in Covington’s downtown.
Looking at it, you can imagine a tumbleweed blowing by — but within just a half block you’ll find artist spaces, emerging lofts and graphic designers. They’re the budding nodes of the Covington Arts District.
According to Covington City Manager Jay Fossett, it’s all part of a revitalization, rehabilitation and re-imagining of Covington.
In the 1950s, Fossett says, the city was a booming commercial mecca — you could shop at major retailers, catch a movie or a theatrical show and ride a streetcar to wherever you wanted to go. But, like other urban cores, Covington was drained of much of its vitality by urban sprawl and suburban flight.
“Those people left, and they left open storefronts,” he says.
By five years ago, this trend left the city of 44,000 with only about 60 percent occupancy in its commercial buildings, Fossett says. But these things are cyclical, he says hopefully, and Covington is coming back.
“We have to reinvent ourselves,” Fossett offers. “We’re not going to get the big retailers downtown. We have to be creative and do niche marketing.”
The niche the city is filling is that of the “creative class,” Fossett says, a concept that’s been popularized by urban planners and the gurus who make it their business to retain the “young professional” (YP) crowd.
According to social scientist Richard Florida, the patron saint of the YP crowd, if you can keep creative professionals, technology workers, gays/lesbians and artists in town, everyone else will follow the leader. In Florida’s book, The Rise of the Creative Class, he contends that these groups are key to urban economic development in post-industrial America. (See CityBeat‘s first story on Florida’s creative class ideas, “Cool Is Money,” issue of June 20, 2002.)
Bringing this YP invasion to Covington shouldn’t displace anyone, Fossett says. Only small tracts of homes are being razed to make way for new buildings. Most of the urban renewal comes in the form of buildings being rehabbed to be used for the first time in years.
Creative and evolving
Tony Kreutzjans is a developer and owner of the new Pike Street Lofts. He’s rehabbing six buildings in the district, including an old mortuary, by stripping commercial properties to the bones and rebuilding them as condominiums.
Kreutzjans is taking advantage of Covington’s numerous tax breaks, grants and incentive programs, plus federal and state tax credits.
“It made total sense to be in the Arts District because of everything they’re doing,” he says. “Why not work with the city, especially when they’re giving you financial help?”
The urban renewal organization Renaissance Covington administrates the loans and grants that define the Covington Arts District and its three constituent parts: Arts and Technology, Artists’ Residential and Cultural Heritage.
Fossett and Renaissance Covington Manager Kathie Hickey describe the programs as favoring arts- and technology-related businesses. Artists will be able to rent space at the new Artisans’ Center for $6 per square foot versus $12 for anyone else. Artists who buy live/work spaces — old corner groceries and the like — can get a $6,000 loan that’s forgiven if they live on site for five years. Small businesses can get thousands of dollars in loans for their start-up at only 1 percent interest.
Hickey says the city is also framing the district by filling its corners with public art. Mosaics at Madison Avenue and Seventh Street tell the story of the revitalization efforts. Spaces have been made throughout the area for sculptures — a statue of Covington native son and realist painter Frank Duveneck is in the works.
Signage will mark the district, and podcasted bicycle and walking tours are being discussed.
“It’s a constant work in progress,” Hickey says. “Because it’s creative, it’s always evolving.”
The keystone of the project is the Artisans’ Enterprise Center, which the city is developing in partnership with the architectural firm Kinzelman Kline Gossman (KKG). Consulting on urban landscaping and planning, KKG will spend $1.84 million to renovate the center.
KKG partner Craig Gossman says his firm will be leaving their home in downtown Cincinnati to help steer the new district. He says it’s a great opportunity to work in the middle of an urban laboratory.
Gossman says the Artisans’ Enterprise Center will provide a focal point for area artists and Covington’s monthly First Friday Gallery Hop. A state-of-the-art media center will be on site so that artists can photograph, display and market their work.
“When you drive into this district, the ultimate plan is for the arts visitor to say, ‘This is an arts district, I can sense it,’ ” he says.
Fossett adds that a shuttle to move visitors between the already successful MainStrasse bar/restaurant area and the emerging arts venues on Pike Street is also in the works. A recreational cyclist, Fossett says he’s excited to see the streets become more pedestrian and bike friendly.
He says he was particularly inspired by Columbus’ Short North arts and entertainment area. He notes that 15 years ago that street had a lot of empty buildings and crime issues, and its transformation into an attractive urban neighborhood has been amazing.
“I thought, ‘Wow, this is a lot of what we envision on Pike Street in Covington,’ ” Fossett says. “The great thing about downtown Covington is that it’s very walkable or very ridable if you’re on a bike. … It’s got a European feel to it.”
Streetcars and light rail are other possibilities that have been mentioned, Fossett says. It’s all about playing to Covington’s strengths.
“Part of our process is to dream, and we need to dream about what we can be,” he says. “To keep our people here we need to create a place where they can live and work.”
This vision is also about keeping Covington diverse, Fossett says. The city passed a human rights ordinance four years ago, stating that employers and landlords can’t discriminate based on race, gender or sexual orientation.
“Cincinnati has now adopted a similar thing, but I think we were ahead of the curve,” he says.
‘Raise the standard’
Covington’s warm economic climate and commitment to diversity brought musician Kim Heindel and his partner, Rick Hoffman, a potter, from Pennsylvania. The couple hunted for several years for communities that offer artist incentives and reasonably priced real estate before they settled on Covington.
Hoffman says he knows of at least one other out-of-state artist, a gallery owner from Maine, who purchased an old church in the city’s arts district.
“I really think that a lot of people are hoping for a really active arts community,” he says, noting that he expects Covington to be a place where he can make a living off of his craft.
Hoffman says Covington is accepting of gays and alive with foot traffic, adding that Cincinnati wasn’t even on his list of possibilities. He describes driving to the Museum Center at Union Terminal one weekend: “We didn’t see one single person on the street driving through downtown.”
Hoffman and Heindel are in the process of renovating an older building on Pike Street that will become a pottery studio and gallery. It’ll be their livelihood and their home.
“We’ll probably see between $30,000 and $35,000 in grant money to help us in our endeavor,” he says.
Eric Vosmeier, theater director at Covington’s Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center, says he’s very enthusiastic about the synergy that’s building between established arts organizations such as his and those new to the city. Vosmeier also serves on Renaissance Covington’s board — that crossover is important to the Carnegie, he says, as the organization has always been tied to the community.
The Carnegie is a key part of Covington’s Cultural Heritage District and increasingly is a magnet for local people interested in the arts. Vosmeier says the Carnegie’s First Friday art shows have been drawing in about 200 people each month this year versus around 150 a show last year.
“I think that anything the city of Covington does that is arts-related is going to benefit us,” Vosmeier says. “I think the two of us will work very well together.”
Vosmeier says Covington’s challenge is to figure out how to attract and retain artists. The city is looking to get about 50 artists from outside the area to move in and has found about 10 so far.
As the arts district develops, he says, “I think it’s going to make the area much more financially successful … and hopefully raise the standard of what people think of Covington.
Barb Ruh, a writer and dancer originally from Nebraska, says she saw Covington as place of great opportunity when she purchased a commercial building on Pike Street two years ago. Her husband grew up in Covington, and it took a while for him to see the promise of the building that would become Ruh’s Passion @ Arts Center.
“I think it’s hard for people who have seen it thriving to imagine that it could ever be that again,” she says.
Ruh says she pictures a space that could be like the Pendleton artists studios in Over-the-Rhine. Today she rents out half of the 16-unit building to artists and is looking for more.
The arts are something that can bring healing to Covington and Greater Cincinnati, she says, bridging socio-economic, racial and cultural gaps.
“I see them as a vehicle, not just an end product,” Ruh says.
The ride might seem slow at first, but it should be worth it at journey’s end.
Of her space’s First Friday draw, Ruh says, “For the most part bingo draws more people to the street, but we’re pioneers … practicing for the time when there are more people here.” ©
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2006.
