The Griffin Arts Community Hosts the Nation's Leading Non-Profit Arts Developer

May 09, 2019

The Griffin Arts Community Hosts the Nation's Leading Non-Profit Arts Developer

The Haisten's Hospital Building
Photographed Spring of 2017 by Bonnie M. Morét

Artspace is the leading non-profit developer of live/work artist housing, artist studios, arts centers and arts-friendly businesses in the U.S. Teri Deaver, Senior Vice President, Consulting & Strategic Partnerships, and Aneesha Marwah, Project Manager, Consulting and Strategic Partnerships are in town this week scoping out locations within the City of Griffin for their next possible project.

I attended yesterday evening's public meeting at the Griffin Welcome Center as I am familiar with their projects in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans.

The mission of Artspace is to create, foster, and preserve affordable and sustainable space for artists and arts organizations. Because Artspace owns each of the projects it develops, they are able to ensure that the spaces remain affordable and accessible to artists in perpetuity. Over the last three decades, Artspace has led an accelerating national movement of artist-led community transformation. While embracing the value the arts bring to individual lives, Artspace has championed the once-radical idea that artists living on the edge of poverty and chronically underfunded arts organizations can leverage fundamental social change. 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 and has served as a consultant to hundreds of communities and arts organizations nationwide.

Artspace is considering is the Haisten's Hospital Building on Meriwether St., which was listed as a Place in Peril in 2015 by The Georgia Trust. In May, 2015, local groups partnered with Home Depot on a multi-day volunteer project to rehabilitate and secure the exterior of the building. The exterior is currently stable, while the interior has been gutted to the original studs. As you can see in the photographs below, the space has excellent light and the architectural lines are gorgeous.

In early 2017, the Haisten's Hospital Building was purchased by an Australian investor who planned to turn it into workspace and studios for artists. I was signed on to be the first tenant in the space ... it did not happen.

I am excited to hear the results of Artspace's feasibility report(July 2019) regarding the development of this project. Great thing are happening in Griffin ... this is just the tip of the iceberg, y'all!.

Below are a few of the photographs of the interior of the Haistens Hospital Building in 2017: