Brown Office Building on Broadway to Be Gifted to the Fund for the Arts for ARTSPACE Multi-Use Development

Louisville Orchestra and Kentucky Opera to Re-Locate Offices to New ARTSPACE Development; Several Other Fund for the Arts Member Groups Considering Relocation to Re-Developed Facility

Louisville, KY – The Fund for the Arts announced today that it is being gifted 8 stories of the 10-story Brown Office Building, located at 321 W. Broadway, in downtown Louisville. The new multi-use development, ARTSPACE, will be owned and operated by the Fund for the Arts and will house Jefferson Community College’s Theatre Department, and beginning in June, 2007, the offices of the Louisville Orchestra and the Kentucky Opera. 

A longtime vision of local arts leaders, ARTSPACE will also serve as an incubator for future Arts projects. “The idea of developing the Brown Office Building as a companion to the W.L. Lyons Brown Theatre, also owned by the Fund for the Arts, has been discussed since the renovation of the theatre in 1998 by the Fund for the Arts. We’ve been working on and dreaming of this idea for years,” said Allan Cowen, President and CEO of the Fund for the Arts.

“The key to making the project happen,” Cowen said, “is the donation of the Brown Office Building to the Fund for the Arts by Brown Office Building LLC, whose members are all longtime supporters of the arts.” Members include George Duthie, Clyde Ensor, J. Michael Ehrler, Kent S. Lloyd, William Receveur III, Sharon Receveur, Robin R. Knox and Nolen C. Allen. The group will continue to own the top 2 floors of the Brown Office Building and has future plans to develop a companion residential condominium project in this space. 

ARTSPACE currently houses Jefferson Community College’s Theatre Department as well as several other tenants. Office space for the business operations of the re-locating Louisville Orchestra and Kentucky Opera will be completed by June, 2007. Future tenants could include Stage One, Music Theatre Louisville and other Fund for the Arts member groups.

“ARTSPACE represents a wonderful opportunity for Arts groups to share a business home on a very economical basis,” Cowen said. “Leveraging overhead investment and opportunities for synergy may save nearly $250,000 annually for individual Arts organizations.”

 The Fund for the Arts offices, located at 623 W. Main Street, a building also owned and operated by the Fund for the Arts, will not relocate.

Already underway at the Brown Theatre is a $1.6 million renovation that includes a pedestrian walkway and entrance from the rear parking garage into the theatre, a new east side lobby and elevator to the Brown Theatre’s balcony and the Fifth Third Conference Center. PARC, the City of Louisville’s parking authority has partially financed the pedestrian walkway and Metro Government has committed to redeveloping the alley behind the Brown Theatre with historic lighting and other amenities as part of the Brown Theatre renovation project.

The ARTSPACE building, which will eventually have an interior entrance to the Brown Theatre, will include a 4,000-square foot rehearsal space above the present Fifth Third Conference Center. The new rehearsal hall is being made possible through a grant from the W.L. Lyons Brown Foundation.

The ARTSPACE redevelopment project is being financed and managed entirely by the Fund for the Arts. “This is a very wonderful way to put together a valuable addition to the community that will benefit all of downtown and is the first new Broadway project to be announced in recent years.” Cowen said.

Fund for the Arts

The Fund for the Arts provides programming and administrative support to twenty-four member groups and programs, including grants to nearly 200 community organizations and schools, throughout the Louisville, Kentucky region.  The Fund for the Arts is the oldest united arts fund in the country and has raised over $125 million since its establishment in 1949. The 2007 fundraising campaign, titled Every 1 Plays, celebrates 30 Years of Employee/Workplace Giving to the Arts!