In Baltimore, Reinvestment Fund is developing a strategy to target investment in the arts to low-income communities in Central Baltimore, where it can catalyze and build on other complementary efforts. For one year, our Creative Placemaking Fellow, Rebecca Chan, was charged with the task of developing best practices for financing the arts in distressed neighborhoods in ways that build community among both new and existing residents. The following is the final in a four-part series on her work. Parts 1 and 2 spotlighted the artists and artist-driven activity that is happening in and around Baltimore, as well as the physical spaces and neighborhoods in which this activity thrives. Part 3 looks at ways in which shifts in policies and programs might help move the needle on arts-based development. In this fourth part, we hone in on strategies for investing in the physical spaces–arts and cultural infrastructure–that serve as sites for arts and cultural activity, and ideally build on and complement broader community development efforts in a neighborhood.
Artists value the process of remaking space and help reveal the potential for recovery inherent in many urban neighborhoods. In both the redevelopment of discrete buildings and incremental renewal of large districts, they provide entrepreneurial energy to the task of preserving something old through the development of something new.
In Baltimore, Reinvestment Fund is developing a strategy to target investment in the arts to low-income communities in Central Baltimore, where it can catalyze and build on other complementary efforts. For one year, our Creative Placemaking Fellow, Rebecca Chan, was charged with the task of developing best practices for financing the arts in distressed neighborhoods in ways that build community among both new and existing residents. The following is the third in a four-part series on her work. Parts 1 and 2 spotlighted the artists and artist-driven activity that is happening in and around Baltimore, as well as the physical spaces and neighborhoods in which this activity thrives. Part 3 looks at ways in which shifts in policies and programs might help move the needle on arts-based development
Artists value the process of remaking space and help reveal the potential for recovery inherent in many urban neighborhoods. In both the redevelopment of discrete buildings and incremental renewal of large districts, they provide entrepreneurial energy to the task of preserving something old through the development of something new.
In Baltimore, Reinvestment Fund is developing a strategy to target investment in the arts to low-income communities in Central Baltimore, where it can catalyze and build on other complementary efforts. For one year, our Creative Placemaking Fellow, Rebecca Chan, was charged with the task of developing best practices for financing the arts in distressed neighborhoods in ways that build community among both new and existing residents. The following is the second in a four-part series on her work. Part 1 took a quick look at some of the arts and artist-driven activity that is happening in and around one Baltimore neighborhood and the ways that these kinds of activities and artistic practices are shaping the revitalization of neighborhoods across the city. Part 2 explores the physical spaces in which this activity is taking place.
Artists value the process of remaking space and help reveal the potential for recovery inherent in many urban neighborhoods. In both the redevelopment of discrete buildings and incremental renewal of large districts, they provide entrepreneurial energy to the task of preserving something old through the development of something new.
In Baltimore, Reinvestment Fund is developing a strategy to target investment in the arts to low-income communities in Central Baltimore, where it can catalyze and build on other complementary efforts. For one year, our Creative Placemaking Fellow, Rebecca Chan, was charged with the task of developing best practices for financing the arts in distressed neighborhoods in ways that build community among both new and existing residents. What follows is the first in a 4-part series on her work. This work is supported by The Kresge and Surdna Foundations’ Catalyzing Culture and Community through CDFIs, or C4, a joint initiative intended to help support and expand CDFIs involvement in creative placemaking.
In March, Reinvestment Fund received a $15 million grant from the William Penn Foundation that will expand the Fund for Quality, a joint project with Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) that has created 630 high-quality early childhood education seats for low-income children.
This new grant will help create an additional 1,500 seats by 2021, which means that over the coming years, thousands more children from low-income families will have quality early learning opportunities across the City of Philadelphia.
The Reinvestment Fund announced the appointment of Rebecca Chan as its Creative Placemaking Fellow. The new position supports The Reinvestment Fund’s arts and culture lending activities in Baltimore by creating and fostering linkages across the creative economy of the city.
A $200,000 grant to The Reinvestment Fund from the Kresge and Surdna Foundations will help develop and pilot a strategy for targeting arts investments in low-income communities to catalyze and build on complementary efforts to revitalize distressed neighborhoods. The Reinvestment Fund was one of seven community lenders from across the country to receive a grant from the foundations.
Reinvestment Fund financed the redevelopment of the iconic former St. Rose de Lima church building and two adjacent schoolhouses into a new cultural hub for the arts, education, and community in New Orleans. Rose Collaborative is a partnership of Alembic Community Development, a mission-driven developer, and Rose Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit that supports reinvestment along Bayou Road. Together they renovated the three adjacent properties, which have not been occupied since Hurricane Katrina.
Reinvestment Fund financing helped transform the historic Centre Theater in Baltimore, Maryland, into a mixed-use, multi-tenant commercial property. Constructed in 1913, the Theater was vacant for nearly a decade before it was renovated by Jubilee Baltimore, the nonprofit developer and owner of the theater. It now houses a joint film program by Johns Hopkins University and Maryland Institution College of Art as well as office space.