BOB GWALTNEY / Courier & Press The Art Deco trim to the windows of the Central Library makes it one of the more distinctive buildings Downtown.

Old Central Library ready for next chapter

By ROGER MCBAIN Courier & Press staff writer 464-7520 or rmcbain@evansville.net

July 31, 2003

Here we go again - or do we?

The Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana's proposal to transform Evansville's 1931 Art Deco Central Library into a Downtown hub of cultural activity echoes a concept other organizations have put forward over the past two decades.

Previous efforts have seen mixed results, from outright failure in the Old Courthouse to spotty development of a "theater district" around The Victory, the restored 1921 movie house on Main Street.

The Central Library plan offers a fresh location and comes with a professionally researched feasibility study and the knowledge that other communities have achieved what the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana proposes to do with what's become known as the Arts Central project, says Kathy Solecki, the arts council's director.

Arts Central is the working name for the mixed-use community cultural center and office building the Arts Council wants to create in the old Central Library building, after the library moves into its new Walnut Street building next year.

The old library's stacks - a three-story, book-laden structure of stacked steel shelves and stairs in the rear of the building - would be renovated as an intimate "black box" studio theater.

Reading rooms and open-shelf areas would become exhibition spaces, meeting rooms, rehearsal halls, classrooms, studios, banquet halls, shops and a cafe. Other spaces could be rented out as offices for profit and not-for-profit organizations, including the Arts Council. The building would get rooftop gardens on both sides of the central fourth floor.

It's all part of an estimated $2.4 million project the Arts Council has been looking at over the last couple years, Solecki said.

During that time, the council has looked at comparable programs in other cities, gotten grants to help pay for an $18,000 feasibility study by a national arts consultant and for preliminary plans and drawings. It has also identified a list of potential tenants necessary to make the project go.

Now the council is taking the first step toward financing the project, requesting $1.8 million for library renovations from the city's Capital Development Fund.

The idea of bringing cultural events and activities together in one area isn't new to Evansville. It's been proposed and tried several times over the last few decades.

One of the goals outlined in the 1983 River City Downtown master plan called for the Old Courthouse, Old Jail and Coliseum to become a hub of arts and cultural activities in Evansville. That portion of the plan never came together, however.

"There just didn't seem to be, back then, the community drive to get (the cultural campus) done," said Steve Brooks, who served as executive director of the city's Redevelopment Commission from 1984 into 1989. "I'm sorry we didn't seize upon the plan back in the 1980s," he said, "but at the time it wasn't financially feasible."

Even so, the Old Courthouse was already serving as a mixed-use home for arts groups and other organizations. During the 1880s and into the 1990s, the imposing 1890 building, with its tall dome and marble trim, was home to a couple of art galleries, artists' and photographers' studios, the Arts Council's offices and theater groups, including Repertory People of Evansville, Totally New Theatre and the Tales & Scales musical storytelling troupe. But the combined rent from those groups didn't cover the cost of heating, cooling, repairing and maintaining the historical building and many of the groups renting space there were getting by on shoestring budgets.

One by one, the groups left. Some moved, and at least one - Repertory People of Evansville - lost its lease, as the building's management tried to bring government offices back to get a more stable financial rental base.

Today the Old Courthouse is back under county management, and has a mix of tenants, including graphic design, advertising, communications companies, political organizations and a few government offices, including the Evansville Police Department's Domestic and Sexual Abuse unit and the Vanderburgh County Engineer.

The city's restoration and renovation of The Victory and Sonntag Hotel in the late 1990s was supposed to be the first of three phases of development for a Downtown theater district. The Victory reopened in 1998. Later, the Signature School moved into the Sonntag Hotel portion of the building.

The second phase called for renovation and expansion of the old Vanderburgh Auditorium, with additional seating in the main hall and creation of a small "black box" studio theater for smaller productions.

Vanderburgh County officials later developed their own plan for the city's biggest municipal theater, nearly razing the existing structure to build The Centre, a larger auditorium and convention center, but without a black box theater. The facility opened in 2000.

The last phase of the theater district concept anticipated a snowballing economic effect. As the restored theaters brought more people Downtown, artists, arts organizations, restaurateurs and other entrepreneurs were expected to fill empty storefronts along Main Street near the Victory, transforming the spaces into studios, galleries, classes, bistros and bars.

So far, that hasn't happened. Some new businesses have moved to Main Street, including several restaurants, but the studios and galleries haven't materialized, and many businesses have closed, as well, leaving two empty storefronts right across the street from The Victory.

The Arts Central project has several advantages over the Old Courthouse as a mixed-use cultural center, says Louise Stevens, president of ArtsMarket, the Bozeman, Mont., consulting company that did the feasibility study on the project.

"The building is in excellent shape," said Stevens. "It's completely wired for the Internet, and the basic infrastructure is in excellent shape." The building's utility expenses are reasonable, and it's getting a new roof. "The capital costs and operating costs are much more manageable than in the Old Courthouse," she said.

Solecki is encouraged that other cities in Indiana have accomplished similar programs, she said. In Bloomington, an old bank has become a cultural building operated by the Bloomington Area Arts Council. In Lafayette, the Tippecanoe Arts Federation has transformed a former Carnegie library.

She sees Arts Central as an opportunity to help fulfill The Victory's goals - providing the missing black box theater, as well as studios, galleries and classrooms anticipated in the third phase of the Theater District.

The project could also bring in more Arts Council members from outlying counties.

For all its potential, however, the project poses one of the biggest challenges the Arts Council has taken on, and would require a bigger budget, a larger staff and expertise the council doesn't have.

With two full-time and one part-time staff members, the council has a $195,000 annual budget. It serves a seven-county area, administering and distributing artists' and organizational grants through the Indiana Arts Commission. The council also coordinates Evansville's annual First Night New Year's Eve celebrations, organizes an annual arts award program, provides workshops for members, prepares a calendar of area arts activities and maintains a reference and referral list of area artists. Taking on Arts Central might mean creating a separate or subsidiary staff, with at least six employees to run the building and take care of its tenants, Solecki said. And the Arts Council would likely need to hire a development director and find a prominent community member to lead a fund-raising drive for the project.

So far, no such fund-raising campaign is in the works, Solecki said. "We're going to have to take this one step at a time." Solecki has been busy finding out about similar projects, consulting with possible tenants for Arts Central and writing the Capital Development Fund grant.

Winning the grant would be an important beginning for the project, both for the money and for the boost such a financial endorsement would give to community fund-raising efforts, Solecki noted.

She's optimistic about the project's chances, she said. "I think it's doable - all we have to do now is convince everybody else."

That will be critical to the project's success, Stevens advised in her feasibility report. "The tipping point in favor of going forward with Arts Central would be the development of an energetic leadership coalition that has the means to make the facility a success," she wrote.

"In short, this project needs the solid commitment of public and private sector leaders who want it to succeed."