Tag Archives: arts

Apartments, Arts District, Downtown, Redevelopment Agency

‘Shipping containers’ explored for artist housing

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Seven artists picked to live in shipping containers behind the Arts Guild? It could make for an interesting season of MTV’s The Real World, but it’s also an idea being explored as one avenue to bring affordable housing to the city for artists.

In a presentation before the Redevelopment Agency last week, representatives of Global Building Modules (GBM) Design Consortium outlined several different preliminary schemes that would site seven modules in the area behind the Arts Guild at Irving Street and Seminary Avenue. The units would be laid out in a way to include shared green space and concert lawn or some type of performance space with a capacity of 50 to 70 people.

Based on shipping containers, the modules are manufactured overseas and buildings can be constructed in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional construction, according to GBM. Transportation costs also are considerably lower since there is no need for special escorts or permits.

Modules retain only the dimensions of shipping containers (roughly 40 x 8, or about 1,280 square feet) and are designed with the aim of zero net energy use, reducing the carbon footprint that comes with traditional construction. The exterior envelope of the structure is wrapped with insulation, windows can be placed anywhere and facade materials can vary. Modules can be organized in different ways, with varying room dimensions. They also are reusable and can be unbolted and reconfigured, or added to another building.

GBM said it has an ongoing relationship with New York University for high-rise housing in Greenwich Village, where modules also can minimize neighborhood impact during construction. As many as a dozen modules can be installed by crane within two days and facades could be seen within three months. They also pointed to projects at 11 Great Jones St. and 135 Crosby St. in Manhattan.

David Wallace of GBM reminded the Redevelopment Agency that the presentation was strictly provisional, “putting ideas out there that are works in progress; they’re not fixed ideas on our part.” Future discussions will focus on programs, the connection to the Arts Guild, music versus art studio space, performance space configurations, LEED goals and energy performance, he said.

The environmental impact of green building has caught the attention of major foundations, according to Mayor James Kennedy, who has sought to include affordable housing for artists to sustain the arts as part the overall redevelopment plan for the city. “Four years ago you couldn’t find a developer who’d do this type of project,” he said, confident that the industry will blossom in the coming years.

Kennedy said the design phase is likely to take many months while the use of Zipcars also will be examined. About seven selected artists, perhaps three performing artists and four visual artists, would act as caretakers of the installation, he said. The Guild site is small enough to test ideas for larger projects, such as the former Elizabethtown Gas building, which could be home to 30 to 70 units of artist housing in the future, Kennedy said. The mayor often talks about retaining artists who come to inexpensive neighborhoods only to get priced out by gentrification.

City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier said the proposal is still very preliminary and there will be further presentations regarding the economics and costs and how the city can address artist housing.

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Uncategorized

‘Tentative thumbs up’ for amphitheater

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An editorial in Monday’s Home News-Tribune, found here on MyCentralJersey.com, gives a “tentative thumbs up” to the Hamilton Street amphitheater that’s expected to break ground this fall.

The thumbs up was tentative “because of the price,” quoting city officials that estimate the $3.5-million project will cost taxpayers about $40 per year. “That’s hard to swallow, especially in these uncertain economic times.”

But they also describe the project as “ambitious” and “like the notion of a large public space to benefit many from the community and from surrounding towns.” The plan to renovate the nearby Bell Telephone building for a 200-seat black box theater and dance studio “helps maintain the city’s character,” the editorial noted, and makes reference to other cities, like Princeton, that “have successfully used the arts as an economic engine.” (Speaking of Princeton, here’s a story on a new five-story, 52-unit residential-retail complex built downtown.)

Not to quibble but for what it’s worth, the editorial also referred to a nonexistent Hamilton Avenue (it’s Hamilton Street in Rahway).

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Art Hive opens new space

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The Rahway Art Hive will host a gala opening Thursday from 6 to 11 p.m. to open its new space on Main Street, coinciding with the Arts District‘s monthly First Thursdays event.

The art studio and co-op gallery will be three times as big as its former home on East Cherry Street and expand to eight artists. The former camera shop sign has been replaced with a colorful mural above the Main Street storefronts.

A few years ago, there was some talk about possibly bringing an upscale, sit-down Chinese restaurant into the space, when Main Street Barber Shop moved next door after Sound-A-Rama was subdivided.

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Downtown

Art sneaking into downtown

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The first of several planned public art pieces recently went up in the alley between Main Street and the River Place parking lot.

A few more murals are expected to go up in the alley over the next few months and others are tentatively planned, according to Jim McKeon of the Art Hive.

The Art Hive also will take over space in the former Main Street Barber Shop storefront on Main Street. McKeon expects the first official opening at the site this summer.

The space is three times the size of the East Cherry Street storefront and will allow up to eight artists. The Main Street building will be the first of a pilot program to transform empty store windows into art exhibitions, McKeon said, along with new awnings.

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Commercial, Downtown, Rahway Survey

Rundown of related redevelopment news

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Catching up on a few news items around the Interwebs that relate to redevelopment locally in one way or another:

* Here’s not one but two stories from Hoboken Patch about temporary art studios filling vacant storefronts in Hoboken and “Empty Storefronts: Bad for the Economy; Good for Art.” If that idea sounds familiar, it’s because Mayor James Kennedy mentioned it earlier this year, patterning it after a similar program in Asbury Park.

* There’s also this Crain’s New York piece (“Bronx merchants’ artsy ambitions”) about leaders in the Westchester Square neighborhood of the Bronx turning the area into a “nexus of art and commerce.”

* Also, Cranford narrowly approved expanding its Special Improvement District (SID). If you recall, Rahway did the same, to include the Hamilton Street arts projects, but also shifted management of the SID funds (roughly $140,000 annually) from the Rahway Center Partnership to the Rahway Arts District.

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Uncategorized

Dance center vacates Irving Street location

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Catching up on a few older items in this blog post. As pointed out by a reader email, the Union County Dance Centre last month moved out of its Irving Street location (photo at left) to a new home in Linden. Showfur Pets also vacated its East Cherry Street location.

As far as newcomers, it looks like Edward Jones Investments will be moving into one of the commercial spaces at Carriage City Plaza, next to the former Mr. G’s Coffee. Signage has been up for awhile but interior work appears to be progressing.

Since we’re on the topic of retail/commercial vacancies and I’ve been meaning to post this link for weeks, here’s a write-up on nj.com (“Pint-sized Gem: Kitchen a la Mode”) about a tiny, specialized kitchen store in downtown South Orange. It goes back to the types of niche stores and merchants that a downtown needs or wants, something Rahway surveyed a few years ago.

And in another look at what other towns are doing, Metuchen has started offering 10 minutes of free parking downtown. The Rahway Parking Authority reinstituted parking meters downtown last summer but the parking deck offers up to 30 minutes free.

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Here’s a piece in Philanthropy Journal (“Nonprofit theaters see financial upswing”) that examines two reports about nonprofit theaters. One reports theaters are rebounding slightly from budget cuts yet many still expect cash flow problems this year, while the other indicates theaters still face staff reductions and changes, including smaller shows and casts and greater reliance on local talent.

There’s also this story from nj.com last month about some arts groups cutting back schedules or closing altogether.

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City Council

City purchases $90k piano for conservatory

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The City Council on Monday night approved $90,000 for the purchase of a handmade Italian piano as part of the plan to establish the Klavierhause Piano Conservatory. The council entered into a contract with Piano Culture Institutional Consultants at Klavierhaus “for the purchase of a Fazioli Pianoforti F-228 (photo below) to enhance the Arts District Expansion Project.”

The piano retails for $140,000, according to City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier, but the city will pay $90,000, with “another source outside of the municipal tax base” that will contribute $5,000. The piano will be on loan to the Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC) and can be moved for performances at the planned amphitheater as well as the arts center.

The bank building adjacent to UCPAC (on the corner of Coach Street) will be retrofitted to house the Klavierhaus Piano Conservatory, which will offer a variety of recitals, lessons, performances and more “with special emphasis given to young people.” The Edge art gallery nearby is being eyed for a satellite sales office for Klavier, where it could feature console pianos, according to Mayor James Kennedy.

A world-class piano brings an interesting component of a respectable art form, Kennedy said, and it shows that city is serious about the arts, especially to funders like the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

The piano will attract internationally renowned pianists that have chosen Fazioli pianos in concert halls, conservatories, theaters and recording studios to perform and record their performances for the public to attend, according to Pelissier. “This is one component that will be a tremendous asset for the UCPAC to provide for and make Rahway a distinct destination of the arts,” he said.

A ceremony to celebrate the piano’s arrival will be Sunday, Feb. 21, at 4 p.m. at the UPCAC Studio Theatre, featuring Russian-born pianist Vassily Primakov.

Asked how a $90,000 purchase for a piano could be justified as property taxes rise, Pelissier described it as an investment in the arts district and the city’s overall redevelopment plans, not unlike the county’s $6-million purchase and renovation of UCPAC, construction of the library and recreation center, and renovation of Train Station Plaza.

“Municipalities that have concert halls have testified that the monies that come in to their respective towns and cities are in the millions resulting from parking fees, spending in restaurants, etc.,” Pelissier said. “In as much, as redevelopment has slowed down with the exception of a few projects, the arts initiatives set forth by the mayor will not only attract people to Rahway, it will continue to attract redevelopers to our city when the economic market returns. Our city will be ready.”

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Arts District, Downtown, Rahway

‘Eye candy’ planned for downtown areas

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A variety of public art will grace downtown areas as part of the plan to show that Rahway is “All About the Arts.”

In a post-State of the City interview last month and a public presentation before the Redevelopment Agency last week, Mayor James Kennedy talked about murals and sculptures scattered around the downtown loop as part of an overall plan focusing on the arts. He described the visual arts piece as a complement to performing arts initiatives such as the amphitheater and black box theater planned for Hamilton Street and gallery space in the YMCA and Elizabethtown Gas building. The “eye candy,” as the mayor describes it, is expected by mid-summer.

As examples, Kennedy noted the walkway connecting Main Street and the parking lot behind River Place as an ideal spot for a mural or a sculpture, in addition to some areas connecting Hotel Indigo to the Lewis Street parking deck. “The whole arts picture has been growing in many pieces that ultimately is coming together now,” he said.

A committee will determine about two dozen quirky spots downtown for sculptures, which then would be cataloged into a booklet for a sort of sculpture garden. The city would be responsible for the footings but artists would cover the cost of their own sculptures. “The advantage to artists is not that they’re paying for their own sculpture but the advantage is that it gives them exposure and exhibition space,” Kennedy said.

Another program will copy what was done in Ithaca, N.Y., where The Sagan Planet Walk at Sciencenter pays homage to the Rahway native and noted Cornell astronomer. A scale model of the solar system would station planets at specific locations between City Hall and the Arts Guild. The program also would incorporate the high school physics program, the mayor said, while the educational piece would include brass descriptions of the technical data about the size and composition of planets. The sculptures would be to scale so some might be as small as a tennis ball while others might be much larger.

“The neat thing is that it brings a sense of community, it’s a something-to-do kind of thing,” Kennedy said, adding that these initiatives aim to create a pleasant atmosphere but also catch the attention of passersby.

A third aspect of the visual arts piece is a window treatment program like one that was done for the Carriage City Plaza sales office. People looking into the windows can see the image or art while those on the inside can clearly see outside. Rather than have paper covering up vacant storefronts, Kennedy said the city also is trying to encourage empty stores to allow the space for use by artists until they are leased.

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