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January 8, 2007

The art of a new purpose

Christian Science building to become arts center

By Dan Linehan

MANKATO — A new arts destination for Mankato will spring from a 66-year-old church.

A collaboration to bring Greater Mankato’s arts community under one roof was announced Monday by the builder who bought and will renovate the church and the umbrella nonprofit that will manage the space.

The First Church of Christ Scientist at 523 S. Second St., next to the Cray Mansion, will be divided into studio space for artists and office space for the Twin Rivers Center for the Arts. It is expected to open in the spring.

Galleries will replace pews frequented by the faithful, and the reading rooms they used for silent reflection may end up as office space.

Center coordinator Shannon Robinson said the Emy Frentz Arts Guild will retain “a hint of church.”

The slender, elaborate lights in the sanctuary and the building’s Kasota stone facade may stay. But, with the pews, organ

and the spartan decorating scheme out, it will be “a very different place.”

The guild is named after the late mother of builder Tony Frentz. While an arts career didn’t pass from mother to son, Frentz said he grew up around art. And, as someone concerned about the city’s center, a downtown location appealed to him.

Frentz wouldn’t say how much the church cost him and said the rate structure for tenants hasn’t yet been decided.

Robinson envisions the guild as an arts hub that will offer a one-stop shop for information about each of the 16 nonprofits her nonprofit represents, as well as a centralized ticketing location.

She doesn’t think it will be difficult to find tenants.

“From the artists that I’ve talked to, there’s definitely a shortage (of studio space),” Robinson said. “I definitely think we’re going to have no problem filling the spaces.”

Talk of an arts center has been heard for decades but has been resurrected by the recently completed Envision 2020 planning process as well as the city’s offshoot, the City Center Stakeholder Task Force.

The relationship between Frentz — who will own the building and lease the space — and the nonprofit, which will have offices here and find artists to join them, is closely based on a Fort Collins, Colo., model.

Robinson and Frentz joined 73 other local leaders in October’s InterCity Leadership Visit to the Colorado city.

There they saw how Arts Alive, an umbrella nonprofit representing more than 60 arts groups, brought artists to the Poudre River Arts Center. The Mankatoans also saw how that collaboration brought visitors — and their cash — to the downtown area.

Debra Becker, a co-executive director for Arts Alive, said the center has been working for about a year and 20 artists are on a waiting list for space.

But will a plan that works in a city of 128,000 survive in Greater Mankato, with a population of roughly 50,000?

Becker said all the players — the building’s owner, the city, the arts nonprofit, and the artists — have to be working in the same direction.

She said the city of Fort Collins doesn’t directly subsidize the center, but it offers grants to nonprofits as Mankato does.

And while she can’t predict with certainty the success of Mankato’s effort, she is sure of one thing.

“There are artists everywhere who need space.”

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