June 30, 2014
Online survey to launch July 1 to determine space needs for area artists, arts organizations and creative businesses
The Cameron Foundation today announced that it will join the cities of Petersburg and Richmond to conduct a major online survey of artists, arts organizations and creative businesses in the region to determine the feasibility of creating one or more multi-use arts facilities. The ten-week survey will be launched with a free public event at Petersburg Public Library on July 1 at 201 West Washington Street. The event is open to all; artists and directors of arts organizations and creative businesses in Petersburg and Richmond are especially encouraged to attend.
This effort represents a collaboration of multiple partners, including The Cameron Foundation, Artspace Projects, CultureWorks, and the cities of Richmond and Petersburg. Artspace Projects, the nation’s leading developer for the arts, will use the survey to identify the types and number of spaces needed by area artists, the amenities and special features that are of interest to them. The results of the survey will help Artspace Projects determine the size of the market in the Petersburg/Richmond region for affordable live/work housing, studio and work space of various kinds.
The survey is the second phase of a scope of work that began last year when an Artspace Projects team conducted Preliminary Feasibility Visits in Petersburg and Richmond. If the survey identifies a market for one or more Artspace Projects developments and the community decides to proceed, survey results will inform both the project concept and site selection. The survey results also will impact specific design and programmatic decisions, such as square footage, parking spaces, types of shared creative spaces to include, rent levels, etc. Artists who take the survey will have the option of being among the first to be informed of project developments, including leasing opportunities.
Additional information about the survey is available at www.creativespacesurvey.org, where interested artists, arts organizations and creative businesses are encouraged to take the survey. “It is so important that we hear directly from the arts community about what it needs to be able to thrive here,” Foundation President J. Todd Graham emphasized. “Elsewhere in the country, viable arts communities have contributed to the economic vitality of the larger region. This survey provides us the opportunity to learn from local artists, arts organizations and creative businesses in order to determine whether an affordable live-work space development could be a fit for this area.”
ABOUT ARTSPACE
Artspace has been hailed by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation and others as an inspiration for the emergent creative placemaking movement. For more than 30 years, Artspace has brought its hard-earned expertise to more than 200 cultural facility planning efforts from coast to coast. Of these projects, 32 have been developed and are owned and operated by Artspace itself, representing a unique, $500 million investment in America’s arts infrastructure. With headquarters in Minneapolis and offices in Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Seattle and Washington, D.C., Artspace is America’s leading developer of arts facilities. To date, it has completed more than a thousand affordable live/work units for artists and their families as well as more than a million square feet of non-residential space for artists and arts organizations. Additional information is available at www.artspace.org.