In November 2006, the Rock Island City Council adopted the Downtown Strategic Plan 2007 – 2010. This plan articulates a vision for downtown Rock Island to be realized through the implementation of nine objectives and supporting strategies. Objective Seven of the Plan is to “Enhance the creation and performance of the arts for sale or public display in the downtown.”

In February 2007, over forty area residents gathered to brainstorm this strategy and to determine ways to foster a higher level of arts awareness and activity in the city. As a result of the February meeting, the Mayor and City Council appointed a nine-member Rock Island Arts Advisory Committee.

The Committee created an ArtsPlan to increase the level or arts activity and awareness in the community with the initial focus on The District. Several overriding principles have guided formulation of the ArtsPlan:

• The arts encompass a broad range of endeavors and make an important contribution to the city’s quality of life – Arts and art activities fall into a number of categories including visual arts, performing arts, literary arts, culinary arts, design, cultural heritage, film, media and textile arts. A comprehensive approach should acknowledge this variety of arts activities and consider support for many different types of art realizing that all make an important contribution to the cultural vitality of the community.
• Arts as economic development - The arts have been cited as an important element of the creative economy.
• Partnerships are essential - The success of any community development effort depends on the formation of effective partnerships. As has been shown over and over, the public and private sectors working together can accomplish great things. The importance of effective partnerships is perhaps nowhere more important than in supporting the arts.

To download the ArtsPlan with the committee's recommendations click here.

Artspace - Live-Work Space for Artists
Artspace, a Minneapolis based not-for-profit firm that develops affordable space for artists and arts organizations, conducted a prefeasiblity study for Rock Island in March 2008. The purpose of the prefeasiblity review was to determine whether there are structures in the city which are of interest to Artspace and to gauge general community support for a project.

Highlights from the report include:

• Artspace believes that there is a clear desire in Rock Island to both support and grow the arts community by providing permanently affordable space.
• For a project to be feasible triple redundancy is a requirement, that is, a market survey must show that three times more artists are interested in the units to be developed than are proposed for development.
• Artspace toured seven buildings and one site in Rock Island and believes the Old Lincoln School property at 2125 7th Avenue offers the best opportunity for a project involving 25 to 30 live/work units with some community arts space.

Download the Artspace prefeasibility study here.

The next step was Artspace conducted an online artist market survey in early 2009 to determine demand for housing and studio space for artists and 204 respondents participated. Artspace indicates “the findings clearly support a small to moderately sized live/work project in Rock Island”. More specifically, the survey found that 81 artists are interested in relocating to a live/work project and 119 artists are interested in renting studio or workspace. The Artspace expertise is in creating affordable live/work space for artists and they believe that a project of up to 27 units is market feasible. In addition, they suggest up to 20 studio/work only spaces be considered. It is interesting to note that of the respondents, 41% of those interested in live/work space have never lived in Rock Island presenting an opportunity to attract new artist residents to the city.

A few other highlight from the report:

• 56% of the interested artists were thirty years of age or younger suggesting the potential that a project would become home to an energetic and emerging artist community.
• Interested artists represent a wide range of arts activities with the most common being photography (25%), music (24%), painting/drawing (20%), and graphic arts (15%).
• 59% of the interested artists have a Bachelor’s degree and 11% have obtained a post-graduate degree.
• 83% of the interested artists would accept a traditional rental arrangement with 74% indicating an interest in renting with the option to buy.

To download the artist market study click here.

To download Artspace’s interpretation letter click here.

Given the favorable survey response then, the question becomes the next step(s). The next steps in an Artspace project are: Predevelopment I which involves determining the project location, Predevelopment II which involves project design and financial modeling, Predevelopment III which focuses on securing financing for the project, Construction. At this time staff is not recommending that we proceed beyond Step 2 however, the City will work with Artspace and GROWTH to explore funding opportunities. Staff will report back to Council with a recommendation on whether or not to proceed once funding possibilities have been researched.