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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They did it 3 years in a row!

OK, This is just darn stupid.  I've complained the last couple of years about the improper and poor pruning of our lovely downtown shrubbery.  The pruner, whoever that is, trims flowering fountain shaped, "Bridal Wreath Spirea" shrubbery into boxes!  Not only does that cut more than half of the flower heads off, but the mystery pruner cuts the Korean Dwarf Lilac bush blooms off too! 

Just like the Palace/Wayne Hotel situation:  pruning out one of the few architectural beauties we have left and exposing the trashy alley to the busiest street in Crookston. 

Does anyone else feel like they are surrounded by idiots or is this how it gets when you have gardened for many many 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.

Crookston Artspace Rreport

Check out this important document for Crookston:

Crookston final report

View more documents from Kay Hegge.

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Follow my Diet Plan!

Sorry to take so long between posts and thanks to all my readers!  I've been working hard on not one, but four historic buildings and have lost 7 pounds!  Come help me out and you too can lose weight.  In fact if all of the people who needed to lose weight in Crookston chipped in and helped clean out the former Wayne Hotel, we all will be winners.  Here is a sneak peak at the "Artspace Report:"

  " the citizens of Crookston should make it clear to their elected leaders that they want the building preserved. While we are sympathetic to the County Commissioners who see the building chiefly as drain on scarce resources, we cannot state too strongly our view that tearing it down would be akin to burning a Rembrandt because you can’t afford to have it cleaned. Every effort should be made to find the money needed to stabilize the building until a suitable reuse can be found. Once gone, it can never be replaced."

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The Vision for Crookston condensed

I have a vision for Crookston and have been actively pursuing it. I believe we can do this with faith not fear.  My vision is for Crookston has seven parts:

1.  First do no harm, keep Crookston beautiful and recycle older buildings.

2.  Keep Crookston quiet and peaceful. Slow down traffic and see the store windows through diagonal parking and two-way traffic

3.  Encourage small businesses through incentives, bring tax dollars back into Crookston (Just passed: our State now offers historic tax credits! as well as the federal government. Thanks to Bonnie McDonald and the MN Preservation Alliance.)

4.  Bring people downtown through affordable housing, increasing events and UMC involvement.

5.  Our kids:  create the best schools ever

6.  Encourage Arts and Culture through a regional approach, advertise our low rents to artists in Grand Forks, Fargo,and the Twin Cities.

7.  Timeliness, Transparency and Democracy in government:  Extensive partnering.  Create meaningful work through  “C-bucks” trade dollars which will also create conversations across all income groups.

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