City officials hope that decorating empty storefronts downtown will attract tenants and stimulate the nightscape.
By VANESSA DE LA TORRE
Published December 5, 2005
CLEARWATER - The empty storefronts were in bad shape. The floors were overdue for a sweeping, the downtown windows needed heavy-duty cleaning, and before the artwork was brought in, one city worker slipped and sliced his arm on a razor.
All in the name of cultural revitalization.
Ten art installations, called "Windows of Opportunity," were unveiled in storefronts along three blocks of Cleveland Street, timed to coincide with the annual Downtown Art Stroll on Saturday. The art marks a new city effort to enliven downtown while promoting the vacant retail spaces where the artwork is displayed.
The makeshift galleries will run for six weeks unless one of the spaces is rented. City officials hope to emulate the success of similar projects around the country that have boosted economic development by transforming rundown urban districts into vital art centers.
Margo Walbolt, the city's cultural affairs manager, said Clearwater's downtown isn't especially stagnant, but whether a population is 300,000 or 30,000, "you can have trouble attracting people downtown."
She said that baby boomers with newfound freedom want live bands, jazz bars and good restaurants as much as young singles do. That usually calls for an urban nightscape, which isn't the case on Cleveland Street.
When the city's cultural arts division was planning the Art Stroll with the Main Street organization two months ago, Walbolt pitched the installation project, reasoning that the residential developments expected for downtown would also require more retail stores and entertainment.
"And artists are the spark" for that kind of economic development, she said.
Already there is talk of making the project an annual Art Stroll feature, as the city hopes the window installations will attract visitors to see the ongoing changes, said Geri Campos, Clearwater's director of economic development and housing.
"It can get people interested culturally, interested artistically or get people interested in developing downtown, so it serves a multipurpose," Campos said.
The downtown development board gave $1,200 to help fund the project.
Elizabeth Minor brought nine oil paintings and a series of black and white silhouettes to her new gallery space Wednesday at 428 Cleveland St. Inside, a sign for Calvary Singles Bible Fellowship still hung from the ceiling. Minor, one of six artists and two creative groups - Juice and Show-Offs - who have temporary window displays, planned to suspend her artwork between the glass and blinds, which needed dusting.
Since moving to Clearwater from Cincinnati a few months ago, the 51-year-old has leaned toward tropically themed painting. She chose for the project a study on conches and whelks, highlighting the colors of sky, beach and light.
"The colors that attracted me to Clearwater," she said.
As a newcomer, Minor was surprised that no art district exists in the city.
"To me it was a blank canvas," she said. "There are large numbers of small pockets of people who are interested in the same thing. They just haven't found each other."
While in Cincinnati, Minor said, she was one of four artists working out of an abandoned warehouse in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, a historic but blighted section of downtown. After nearly two years there, she said, the neighborhood changed dramatically.
Now 150 artists use the warehouse as a studio, with another 150 on the waiting list, Minor said. As their artwork began to sprout in the neighborhood, so did boutiques, bookshops and nightclubs.
Artist Robin Popp of Clearwater thinks the city is due for a similar creative and economic jolt.
Popp's display at 529 Cleveland St. features papier-mache mannequins in a scene that contrasts bitter Northern winters with the warm lushness of Florida. She said public art can change the stigma of a vacant storefront.
"It will bring excitement to the downtown area, curiosity," said Popp, 40. "I think it's going to show that Clearwater isn't sleepy. It's moving forward."
