Organization

Arts Village gallery can stay open all winter

By Bill Chapin
Sunday, October 25, 2009

October 25, 2009

One of the biggest complaints among the artists living at Armory Arts Village has been the lack of heat in the Grand Gallery.

Last winter the hall was closed from November to May, upsetting artists who moved into the building with the idea they would have a place to display their work year-round.

That scenario won’t be repeated. Last week workers began installing a radiant heating system that will allow the gallery to be used through the winter.

The Enterprise Group, Jackson County’s economic-development agency, is paying for the system out of its budget. The total cost is expected to be about $40,000, President and CEO Scott Fleming said.

“It hurts,” Fleming said, but keeping the gallery open was a priority for the agency.

For artists, the heating system is a step in the right direction, but questions remain about the room’s availability.

“It’s encouraging,” artist Jean Weir said, but “there’s a lot of unknowns.”

The Enterprise Group has contracted Fancy Schmancy Events, an event-planning company based at the neighboring Art 634 development, to coordinate use of the gallery. Owner Chris LaRock Gorton said her job will be a combination of handling booking for outside groups that want to use the gallery and working with Armory Arts Village residents and others in the community to plan events.

“Lots of ideas have been talked about, and now we can realize some of that ... without freezing our tails,” LaRock Gorton said.

“We’re going to take small steps but dream big,” she said. “It would be great if we can make this a central part of happenings in our community.”

The heating system is similar to those used to heat such large spaces as warehouses and hockey arenas, Fleming said.

Fleming said the temperature will be maintained at about 55 degrees when the gallery is not in use and turned up to 70 degrees during events.

The cost will be significantly less expensive then what it would have cost to heat the former drill hall — which is 250-by-50 feet with 44-foot-high ceilings — with the building’s existing boiler system. The bills could have been as high as $10,000 a month in the winter, Fleming said.

“We had to find a way of heating it economically,” he said.

In May when the Jackson City Council approved the second phase of the Armory Arts project, Fleming said that fees from the development would be used to buy the heating system and pay utilities, but an agreement with project developer Excel Realty Group of Shaker Heights, Ohio, was never reached.

Instead The Enterprise Group will be looking at use of the hall to generate income to cover expenses.

What’s still unclear to artists is what that means as far as their ability to plan exhibits in the hall.

“We can’t make any plans until we know the format (and) if we’re going to be charged,” Weir said. “We need quite a bit of time to plan, and right now we’re stuck without being able to make a commitment.”

At least one thing looks certain: The arts complex’s Fourth Friday Open Studio nights will continue. The Enterprise Group is budgeting $500 to cover utilities for such events as the monthly open houses.

Construction of the second phase was to have started this year but has been pushed back to the spring because of environmental contamination on the site, Fleming said. The developer and The Enterprise Group are waiting to hear from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority to determine what it will take to clean the site and comply with state and federal regulations.

When completed, the second phase will be a mixed-use development with 49 housing units for people age 55 and older, retail and gallery space, an outdoor plaza and additional parking.

Also in the works is a new Web site for the complex to market it to new artists and allow current residents to network with each other and sell their work online.