NEWS CENTER
West Haven arts community plans for future without downtown center
As the city appears poised to seek a new purpose for a vacant, city-owned downtown building that had been planned as an arts center for years, a local arts official who presented the City Council with a business plan for the site said it’s not the end of the road for the local arts community.
“A building is just one strategy,” said Elinor Slomba, president of ArtsWest CT. “A building can provide a roof so that many different entities can function in a connected and visible way in a central location, but there are always many, many different strategies to pursue different goals.”
Although Slomba said she put “a lot of time and effort” into working with stakeholders and building upon years-old efforts to design a plan for a former Masonic lodge at 304 Center St. to become an arts center, she said she did so because it initially was what the city had sought. She said that, although local government appears to be “pressing pause” on developing the local arts scene, that’s not the case for the arts community.
To read the full article posted in the New Haven Register, click here.
Posted June 3, 2023
By Brian Zahn, Staff Writer
