County awards $25,000 to Gunnison Arts Center for remodel

Focusing on the “historic preservation” component

By Katherine Nettles

In a rare combination of funding to spare and a cause that aligns with its stated goals, the county has opted to help fund a capital project for the Gunnison Arts Center (GAC) with $25,000 this year.

The GAC has estimated it needs to raise a total of $2 million to match potential grant funding in order to restore and upgrade both interior and exterior components of its 137-year-old building located at Gunnison’s main intersection.

The GAC board of directors submitted its request to the county in early September, asking that the county contribute $50,000 to the project—with $25,000 in 2019, and the remaining $25,000 in 2020—and that the commissioners write a letter of support for the project to include in a state historic grant application.

The county commissioners discussed it briefly on September 3, and county manager Matthew Birnie reminded the board that the county cannot set aside funds from its 2020 budget yet. But for the 2019 request and the letter of support, the commissioners suggested that arts center representatives provide a presentation of their project campaign.

Since the county has not historically contributed to capital campaigns for non-profit organizations, commissioner John Messner indicated his hope that the county could find “creative ways” to support the campaign without direct financing.

On September 24, GAC’s executive director Carlie Kenton and project campaign co-chair Hap Channell delivered on the presentation, and the commissioners delivered on support—in the form of the support letter and initial funding.

One of the components of the campaign they emphasized is historic preservation, and the county commissioners agreed at their regular meeting on October 1 that this was a key factor in swaying their opinions.

Other major factors were that more than $27,000 happens to be sitting unallocated in the county’s discretionary fund, and that while the county has assisted in attaining grants to help GAC in the past, not many options along that route are available this time around.

During their presentation last week, Kenton and Channell painted a picture of historic restoration inside and out, and larger, more accommodating spaces to suit a variety of events at the arts center. Channell described how the GAC has occupied its building for 30 years, and tripled its programming over the past five years to offer more than 200 programs annually.

During the same period of five years, Channel said, participation has exceeded that growth, with more than 1,500 people attending these programs. In addition, he said the center hosts concerts, block parties and other events for the community.

Kenton and Channel said the project will take shape in at least two phases, hopefully over three years, and has already started with a new roof.

Channel said a structural assessment a few years back showed the 1882 building is in really good shape, but he also laid out about eight different issues to work on.

Channel went through what he called “A lot of infrastructure stuff, which is not very sexy in these kinds of projects… but we want you all to be aware of it.”

This includes an exterior façade; plaster work; removal of asbestos popcorn covering the historic ceiling structure; restored flooring; and renovation of the HVAC system and lighting throughout the building.

He said the campaign is looking for a mechanical engineer to help combine the old building and the newer south wing addition from the mid-1990s in terms of structure and ventilation. “This will be problematic due to what is in some areas a 24-inch stone wall,” said Channel, and work involving the newer building is not related to the historic preservation or its related grant funding.

Kenton said the campaign wants to keep the building open for its regular programs as much as possible throughout the construction projects. She also described several ways these improvements can elevate their programming, such as adding a digital arts-maker space.

“We are looking at how the arts center can be a relevant and exciting part of our community,” Kenton said. For this purpose the campaign is looking to add some new facilities such as a teaching kitchen; a café-style seating area; adult and youth entertainment and collaborative areas; space for caterers; and seating for diners.

Upgrades and remodels to the gallery and theatre spaces are also in the plan. “We are the one public space [in Gunnison] that artists can come in and fill a big, white room with their art,” said Kenton. Along with gallery space lighting updates, the campaign wants to flip-flop the main gallery and the main theater to address current traffic flow issues and capacity limitations.

“There is not one room in the arts center where we can put more than 100 people—in that giant building,” said Kenton. She said there would be a moveable gallery wall between the theater and gallery to create a “flex space.”

The campaign’s fundraising goal of $2 million is in an initial phase of securing the first $1 million before going to the public. “We are trying to get as many community partners as possible first, because that makes an impact,” said Channel.

There had been a total $557,000 committed so far, and the county’s contribution now brings that up to $582,000.

The funding sources have included personal and corporate donations and state historical fund contributions, and the campaign has identified five community partners it hopes to secure as a showing of solidarity and to leverage more funding. These include Western Colorado University, which has committed $30,000; the Met Rec board, which has committed $10,000; Gunnison Home Association; the city of Gunnison; and the county.

“The arts is a significant [economic] driver,” said Kenton, and cited the ways the GAC provides jobs, uses local vendors and attracts sales taxes.

“The fact is that we are a south end of the valley amenity,” said Channel.

Commissioner Roland Mason said he appreciated how this project fits into the One Valley Prosperity Partnership (OVPP) concepts and county needs. “That helped me put it in perspective. As a county, we like to use the funds that we have as leverage to fund additional money. So that is a really good piece of it,” he said.

Messner had said in September that he was looking at different ways the county can be most helpful, including federal impact grants, since it was involved before. While the county did not give them money last time, it leveraged a large sum through a Department of Local Affairs Impact Fund to get a grant that ended up being about $700,000.

Messner said he is less interested in tying it into OVPP, although he agreed with the alignment. His interest was more tied to the historic preservation aspect, and the economic driver.

“With the available discretionary funds I do see a pretty strong tie-in with our goals of historic preservation,” Messner said. Commissioner Jonathan Houck also discussed exploring other ways to support grant opportunities, and said he appreciated that the GAC campaign was “casting a wide net,” rather than going only to local government.

When the commissioners reconvened on October 1, Messner said the collective search for alternate county-leveraged funding mechanisms had not yielded anything.

Mason said he wants to be conservative with the discretionary funds since there are still three months left in the year, but Birnie said the county doesn’t often have this much money left in that fund at this point in the budget cycle.

The commissioners unanimously agreed to move the funding to GAC.