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Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

Grand Avenue aims for arts, creativity

The Grand Avenue mall has started leasing vacant spaces to business in an effort to combat decreasing foot traffic. photo by Amanda Frank/[email protected]

The Shops of Grand Avenue are somewhat of a ghost town these days. But Grand Avenue officials are trying to revive the one-time shopping destination with a new approach: leasing space in the shopping plaza’s Plankinton Building to businesses focused on teaching creativity and the arts.

The most recent group planning to lease space is Janus College Preparatory & Arts Academies, Inc., a nonprofit, private institution focused on the performing arts, such as music, theater and visual artwork.

The Milwaukee Board of Zoning Appeals hearing is today, and if the board approves this area of the shopping plaza as adequately zoned for educational purposes, the JCPAA is clear to move into Grand Avenue, said Tracy Korpela, marketing and specialty leasing director for the shopping plaza.

“After the ownership decided we needed to do something to fill this space, we met with Creative Alliance Milwaukee, who advised us to open it up to creative-focused businesses,” Korpela said.

Christine Harris, executive adviser at Creative Alliance Milwaukee, a nonprofit group that helps drive economic growth through creative industries, said they began working with mall officials in February 2011 to repurpose space in three floors of the Plankinton building.

“We thought, ‘What if we looked at this space as a creative ecosystem?’” she said.

Creative Alliance Milwaukee and Grand Avenue hosted an open house earlier in the year to get the word out to local for-profit businesses, nonprofits and individual artists. Ten spaces were available when the initiative started, now only three remain, Harris said.

Businesses already leasing space in the building include Spreenkler, a software start-up firm, Third Coast Digest, an online arts and culture magazine, and Milwaukee Public Theatre, a community arts outreach organization.

Valerie Benton, founder and president of JCPAA, said she and her 12 staff members are looking forward to providing creative and artistic education to the Milwaukee community.

“JCPAA is not just for inner city, low-income kids,” Benton said. “It’s for any kids who are interested in the arts and preparing for a college education.”

The JCPAA has no physical school location yet, but plans to use the space at Grand Avenue for the performing arts, Benton said.

A referral led Benton to inquire about the available space at the shopping plaza. She spoke with Korpela to take a tour of the Plankinton Building and fell in love with it.

“It is a beautiful building and so business-like,” she said. “A kid would feel good coming into this building.”

Benton also said the close proximity of arts-related businesses, like the Riverside Theater, made the space at Grand Avenue perfect for JCPAA.

“We are so happy to have been given the opportunity to help the community and the children of the community through the arts,” Benson said.

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