RISE: Capital Campaign

In 2019, Artists Rep set plans in motion to renovate our long-time home with the RISE Capital Campaign. Originally built in 1923 as an Elks Lodge health club, the building had reached the end of its useful life. We sold half of our full city block to a developer, and reinvested the proceeds in a campaign to entirely renovate our building and provide a modern home that matched the quality of Artists Rep’s productions and scope of our partnerships. 

The pandemic derailed these plans and our fundraising efforts as we struggled to survive the devastating closures and subsequent economic, audience, and donor downturn – trends that have compressed revenues and, combined with spiking construction material costs, left the redevelopment project unfinished.

With grit, determination, and encouraging support from our base we completed a partial renovation and returned home in an interim capacity in the spring of 2024. We currently produce our plays and provide affordable rentals in our rough & ready space, a temporary “theatre” within the roughly finished section of our building.

Believing Artists Rep is a legacy cultural institution worth preserving, our staff, board, and advisors grappled with the challenge of how to complete the project. After evaluating multiple courses of action we have determined that completing our facility as a performing arts center for locally created work – capable of serving a multitude of regional organizations, artists, and events – is the most viable path forward.

This renewed vision and approach help address the dire lack of quality, affordable rental space for performing artists in our region; ensures the venue will be vibrantly active with a variety of artistic, cultural, and social events year-round; and better positions Artists Rep to thrive as a producing company. Artists Rep will administer the venue, manage partnerships, and continue to produce plays as the anchoring resident company.

We now need to address two major initiatives: a capital campaign to complete construction; and an operating plan to run it as a performing arts hub. 

We seek to:

• Raise $11.5 million to complete construction 
• Transform building utilization into a performing arts hub
• Expand Artists Rep from a three to a four-play season

We need to move with urgency, as our temporary occupancy is limited and not guaranteed. Now is the time. Let’s build the future together!