City Council 7 pm sharp tonight! Save the Wayne for Artspace!

Don't forget to show up!  Tonight, August 23, 2010 at 7 pm in City Hall is our last chance to save the Wayne/Palace Hotel.  We will be presenting three new ideas for the historic landmark plus the stabilization costs and a new downtown task force that will cross the arts with the politicians!  Be There!

Pictures are at www.ourcrookston.blogspot.com!

The Palace Pavilion

Latest brainstorm, The Palace Pavilion.  Open the doors for impromptu art and entertainment!  Let's bring more events downtown besides Crazy Days.  I can envision the Hotel Wayne as a shared “center common” covered pavilion space dedicated for:   dance performances, impromptu and planned.  Temporary food vendors, art walks, roller skating, displays, and promotions, pop-up “stores,” farmer’s markets, even community rummage sales.  Complete with picnic tables, a fountain, and a deck for performing, we can gather for community education, meetings, and have a place for adults and youth to hang out.

This “Palace Pavilion” can be simply a “three-season” place with screens for summer and shutters for winter. This idea requires only building stabilization, a new roof, and complete clean-out of the building.  It puts the minimum of county and city money into it and in fact saves the city and county some of the demolition cost, while bringing much needed foot traffic to downtown Crookston.   

Of course, we certainly want to move forward on funding the “Artspace Market Survey,” in hopes of a larger development that brings in tax dollars.  In the meantime this can save the county and city money and bring a much needed ‘center’ to our town needing only a new roof every 30 years.

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Can you believe Crookston tore this building down?

Where was I at the time? Probably during my 20's busy with nothing important at the time. This was "urban renewal:"  Tear it down and build new."  This Bank of Crookston stood where the Bremer Bank is today.  We have lost so much already.  Public leaders should wait until we have our Artspace Market Survey done before even thinking about tearing down the Wayne/Palace Hotel.

Two year goal for Crookston!

The people of Crookston are speaking up about working together. And they are saying that Crookston is a great all-around place to be. As part of that vision, where do we want to be in two years? In two years, the next "bonding bill" year for the State Legislature, I want to see the "Northwest Centre for the Arts" or "Second Street Arts Centre" project successfully funded. OK, so we haven't even enjoyed our visit from "Artspace" yet I can see it, can you?

The former Wayne Hotel and former Cathedral on Ash Street are by now cleaned up through successful grant applications and donations. The spaces on the main floor of the Hotel and the former Cathedral will become working and performing art spaces for all kinds of artists, young and old: sculptors, pottery makers, metal workers, painters, musicians, actors,  photographers, video movie designers, and dancers, and the balance of funding will come from the State.

I've offered to Polk County free grantwriting services on the former Wayne Hotel for the roof and the clean up. I am already working on these grant apps for the Cathedral. In two years, I want to see Crookston written up in the news as a successful funded bonding bill project. We will need to drop our personal agendas and work together to make this happen, not just talk about it one way in public and another way in private.  Can we do that?  I have hope.

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Four New Prayers for Crookston!

One Prayer answered, Two need more Prayers, and add Four!

That community leaders prioritize developing housing and businesses downtown, Answered!

That the banks of Crookston reconsider sponsoring an affordable housing program grant application for the Union Building, the missing piece to the funding package.

That a developer comes forth to develop housing in the former Professional Building. 

That all of Crookston and area artists show up for the “Artspace” events.

That “Artspace” will choose to develop the Wayne/Palace Hotel.

Strengthen the hearts of Polk County Board Commissioners to endure the Wayne/Palace problem a bit longer.

That our younger generations speak up and encourage us when we are sad, apathetic, negative, or avoiding difficult problems.

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The Heart of the Problem

The heart of the problem is this: 'Downtown revitalization is essentially a real estate exercise: to make a downtown 'succeed' economically, there needs to be enough sales activity taking place there to generate sales levels high enough for the businesses to afford the rent levels that property owners need to rehabilitate and maintain their buildings.

 

Kaddatz Artists Lofts, Fergus Falls, MN developed by "Artspace!"

Sales --> Rents --> Maintenance and Rehabilitation' (Kennedy Lawson Smith) How do we do this is the question. Historic Preservation for housing is one way, a proven way, a green way, and one that may just 'salvage' downtown.

Encouraging the growth and activities of the Fine Arts is another proven method.  Watch this space for news of the upcoming "Artspace" 2-Day Visit to Crookston!  America's Leading Nonprofit Real Estate Developer for the Arts / Artspace's Mission is to create, foster, and preserve affordable space for artists + arts orgs!

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Part IV Vision for Crookston

Those who read the Crookston Times Guestbook already know Part IV of “My Vision for Crookston.” And that is BRING MORE PEOPLE DOWNTOWN! In other words, let’s develop what we already have: a beautiful downtown, made so by the vision of the community leaders of the mid-80’s and with help from Minnesota Department of Economic Development Small Cities Grant. Don’t forget the promoters of the Red Lake River goes way back to the mid eighties also! Gene Miller was deeply involved then. He started the movement to restore our river to recreational status.

Do you remember some of those folks? Chuck Hiller, Henry Gredvig, Hilkey, and Ray Ecklund were some that I knew. And by the way isn’t that how the sidewalk pavers got funded? Not through highway 2 improvements, but through that first block grant. It was a grant to the City to fix up downtown and was set up as an interest buy-down grant and a 5% loan program. The loans got paid back and reused through a revolving loan fund that was made just for downtown improvements. They had some money in the fund and they spent it on the pavers. Was all the money used up then? I thought these funds would revolve for quite some time and be available into 2011 or 2012?? Anyway, the loans and the pavers eventually got paid back through tax assessments downtown. How that happened I don’t know. Oh well, one more lost tool to use on downtown buildings. But I digress.

Here’s the gist of my letter on the guestbook, with a few improvements:

The problem downtown is not the older buildings, the vacant buildings, or the image; those are just symptoms of the problem. It is the LACK of “people traffic” downtown. There are not enough customers to buy and therefore pay to repair the buildings, whether they are new or old! There are only two ways to fix that problem. One is through tourism and events, (on Crazy Days, the Brenda Nordlum & Kay’s Attic Rummage Sale made more money than in one month of being open daily!) Another is through housing downtown. For only $4,000, We could get Artspace here to develop the Fournet Building, or the former Villa St. Vincent building into housing for artists! We can encourage UMC to develop downtown housing! Think, for a moment, if their $10 million new student housing could have been created in one of our vacant buildings!! The quick rent up of Central Square is proof.

IMHO, everyone here and their friends and relatives needs to write, email, or call their Ward leader, cc the Mayor, and Dan Johanneck, that tourism and housing downtown needs to be tops on their to-do list, its time for a new block grant, and tell them not to divert us by thinking about tearing out those beautiful pavers: they were put in with state and federal money and paid for by all the businesses downtown! Write today!

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