ROCKLAND, Maine ― An arts foundation plans to build apartments where resident artists can live and work next to its existing headquarters on a quiet dead-end street.
The Ellis Beauregard Foundation is asking the city to rezone the site to allow for performance space there as well. The vision is to create a microcampus where artists can focus on their work and the community as a whole can experience art, lectures and film screenings onsite.
“It will be tucked away in a neighborhood, but we like to look at it as another potential cultural asset in this beautiful creative economy here in Rockland,” Ellis Beauregard Foundation Executive Director Donna McNeil said.
The foundation provides resources and financial support to artists, including a residency program through which artists receive a stipend and a workspace in Rockland. It was formed to honor the legacy of its founders, the late artists John David Ellis and Joan Marie Beauregard.
For the past year, artists in the foundation’s residency program have been living and working in a dormitory style environment at the Lincoln Street Center.
Initially, the foundation sought to purchase the Lincoln Street Center — a former school that’s been converted to studio and event space — and upgrade the facilities. But McNeil said a deal could not be reached with the property owner.
Meanwhile, across from the foundation’s offices on Knowlton Street, McNeil noticed that a neighbor was selling their house. She approached the neighbor, who said he would be willing to sell his property to the foundation. The foundation was also able to buy an abutting property.
“This opportunity to purchase property on Knowlton Street came along and it seemed really ideal for us,” McNeil said. “It’s going to become like a campus.”
The plan is to demolish both existing homes on the sites and build a four-unit apartment building there, where rotating artists would live for up to six months at a time. The performance space would offer the foundation a place to showcase the work of its founders and resident artists.
The foundation’s residency program is open to artists from across the country. While the foundation has hosted primarily Maine-based artists in the past, McNeil said expanding the program nationally — and perhaps internationally ― would be a boon to the local arts scene.
“I think bringing artists from away into this community for any amount of time enriches both the resident artist and the community. Just infusing the community with new points of view,” McNeil said. “It’s sort of like a cultural change exchange.”
The zoning change is slated to go before the city’s planning board in early December. The board would then send its recommendations on the proposal to the city council for consideration.
McNeil said she anticipates that the entire project will take up to 18 months to complete, pending city approval.