Olaf Growald
A pre-pandemic scene from ArtsGoggle, the Near Southside's annual arts festival.
The Near Southside continues to grow every day with new restaurants, shops, and art adding more character to the neighborhood. And while that may be a good thing, many who have been residing and owning businesses in the district know — the more development in the area, the higher the cost of living.
Mike Brennan, president of the Near Southside Inc., says he's known for years that this problem would show up eventually, and when it did, he knew exactly whom he wanted to partner with to help ease the area's growing pains.
Artspace is a nonprofit arts organization, based out of Minneapolis, that specializes in creating, owning, and operating spaces for artists and creative businesses at affordable prices. These spaces typically look like living spaces as well as work studios. For example, not only can an artist rent out an apartment to live in, but within the same complex are an art gallery, rehearsing studios, music rooms, and industrial workstations.
Think of a corporate office building with multiple companies and entrepreneurs all on different floors of a building — but with a fine arts twist.
Near Southside, Inc. is looking to bring a space like this to Fort Worth.
“They [Artspace] are the nation's leading initiative of providing these spaces," says Brennan. "They have multiple success stories in other cities, so it was an obvious choice to partner with them on this."
However, Brennan emphasizes that Near Southside, Inc. is only in the beginning stages of this initiative (currently being dubbed the "Near Southside Creative Incubator" project), conducting research and finding evidence that this project is needed.
“We are in the study phase right now, and I want to bring up the fact that we're talking about a project that’s likely several years from opening its doors to the public,” says Brennan. “But we’re committed to leading that conversation.”
Near Southside, Inc. held a Zoom meeting with the neighborhood's artistic community Tuesday, where Brennan explained that the creative incubator could land in one of three potential sites: part of the Southside Preservation Hall, the Fort Worth Recreation Center, or a piece of land adjacent to the recreation center.
“You can easily envision these listings as multifaceted living spaces with enough room to also make working spaces," Brennan said.
But these facilities don’t come at an easy price. Brennan tells Fort Worth Magazine that the Near Southside is looking at a variety of sources to help with funding.
“If we’re able to move forward on any of these sites and meet this dream, we need to find the right financial partners or traditional lenders that believe in ideas like this,” he says, “and reach out to our philanthropic communities that support the arts and present them a new way to grow this ecosystem that supports homegrown artists.”
Nonetheless, Brennan and Artspace are still hopeful and excited to be leading these new discussions in their community.
“We are very focused on being inclusive in our approach from the beginning," Brennan says, "so that when and if this project gets built, it’s based on everyone from Fort Worth and where we want to be as a city."
