2008 Promising Projects — Nurturing Community Arts

Lacking a permanent home for both its operations and rehearsals, Opera Grand Rapids (OGR) has moved 3 times in the past 10 years. Rehearsals have been held in twelve different locations in the last six years, often with these spaces being secured at the very last moment. The costume shop has had a similarly vagrant existence being housed in a new location for nearly every show. This lack of permanent facilities has meant that for every production OGR must load in and set-up both its rehearsal hall and costume shop, investing labor and money in spaces it does not own and ultimately adding to the cost of each show. Furthermore, when OGR wants to conduct educational or public programming it must lease or rent space for these activities.

With a generous gift from Betty Van Andel and a site secured two miles east of downtown, OGR is now ready to construct its own facility to house all of its operations. The new Betty Van Andel Center for Opera on the corner of Fulton and Carlton will be a 14,000-square-foot, LEED-certified facility. This will allow Opera Grand Rapids to bring all aspects of its operations under one centralized roof including offices, rehearsal hall, costume shop and storage, meeting rooms, practice rooms, property storage and educational space.

This project demonstrates several areas of alignment with the Frey Foundation’s arts funding priorities:

• Dedicated space will allow the company to offer an expanded array of educational and public programming as well as diversify its funding base through the addition of rental income.
• The site selected for OGR's new facility has been empty since a fire a number of years ago and this new construction, including an adjacent restaurant, will serve to anchor the east end of the Fulton Street business district.
• With appropriate lighting, temperature and fly space in which to rehearse, casts will more comfortably rehearse.
• As with any excellent arts capital project, this project is broadly supported.

Housed in the former Lloyd J. Harriss Pie Company factory, the Saugatuck Center for the Arts (SCA) has invested over $1.7 million to create a 430-seat theatre, a 55-seat performance studio, an art studio and classroom, an exhibition hall and a lobby/box office. Programmatically, the SCA provides year-round arts and cultural opportunities for children and adults in Allegan County and the surrounding lakeshore region – a region classified by the State as “underserved” with respect to arts and cultural. They now are poised to expand arts engagement opportunities to low-income students through partnerships with underserved schools and community groups in Allegan and Ottawa Counties.

The model they propose fits well with the Frey Foundation’s arts education emphasis in that it is an experiential, hands-on and sequential engagement opportunity. Planned programming includes school-year festivals (dance, theatre, etc.), summer children’s programming and exposure to arts professions (both fine arts and applied arts) as potential career paths. In addition to expanding their service beyond the Saugatuck/Douglas Fennville Schools, they will also engage students from Allegan County and Holland Heights as well as home school children, Boys and Girls Clubs participants and other social service agencies.