Vacant properties + artists = creative land use in Cleveland

I was working at the From Rust Belt to Artist Belt II summit in Cleveland, Ohio, on Friday when some exciting action broke through the flow of talk. 

Amid the two-day discussion among artists, community developers, arts agencies and funders from around the country about how to transform aging industrial cities to vibrant arts communities, a three-partner collaboration was announced: The Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corporation (or Land Bank) will work with the nonprofit Community Partnership for Arts and Culture  (CPAC) and Village Capital Corporation, a community-development loan organization,  to provide artists with low-cost properties for live-work spaces. 

The collaboration’s overall goal appears to be having the Land Bank, a new county venture headed by County Treasurer Jim Rokakis,  make a number of the foreclosed and/or abandoned properties it receives available to artists, who would be chosen through a process that CPAC would help develop. Village Capital would provide financing to the artists for house purchases. Tom Schorgl, who heads CPAC, said during the announcement that he estimates the purchase program will take six to nine months to create and be a national model. 

There aren’t many details yet and since I was at the summit as an independent contractor for CPAC (which organized the event) and was helping chronicle panel discussions for its archives, it wasn’t my place to ask journalistic questions. But you can find out more about the organizations involved by clicking on the links above. Also, learn about the successful and precedent-setting property-purchase program in Paducah, Ky., that will no doubt be one of the models for the Cuyahogy County program.