The Elm Street Cultural Arts Village has taken a key step in its development with the recent completion of grading and landscaping for its future site, at the same time soliciting design ideas from community members as the nonprofit organization readies to launch its capital fundraising campaign.
The idea for the 4-acre property to become an arts and recreation destination in downtown Woodstock began several years ago, but began progressing more rapidly about two years ago with the securing of the land off Elm Street, where the historic century-old home known as the Reeves house resides.
Shawn McLeod, president of the Elm Street Board of Directors, said the organization has found its first lead donor, Walton Communities, which recently opened a 325-unit complex known as Woodstock West, located next door.
“Walton Communities has really been our first major supporter of the property,” McLeod said.
Elm Street Cultural Arts Village currently rents space at the City Center building at 8534 Main St., which is owned by the city of Woodstock. Prior to its move to that site two years ago, it was known as Towne Lake Arts Center and was located off Towne Lake Parkway.
“As a theater that has been going for 10 years now, we’ve had some great support from the community for a long time, but really making those steps toward the development of that property, that’s where we are now,” McLeod explained. “Going out and securing services is where our fundraising committee has been working on.”
She said a total of $700,000 has been raised so far for the project, and she estimated another $500,000 would be sufficient to cover the rest.
Walton, which McLeod said has led the charge in donations with $200,000, cleared and graded the property. That work was completed last month. They’ll also be constructing a rain garden in the future, which she said serves a dual purpose, as it will also serve as a retention pond for their shared properties, which is a requirement of developments.
Other donors who have contributed include Austin Outdoor, which donated landscaping for an event green and Highland Waterworks, which donated labor and the sprinkler system. Melissa Casteel, principal landscape architect from Mondo Land Planning + Design, has and is continuing to donate her services.
“We wanted to have something the public could see to show them it’s really happening, but at the same time, we’re still looking at finding our second lead donor and then launching the full-blown capital campaign,” McLeod said of the recent work to the property. “We knew that there were some things that had to be done — we knew we needed water lines, sewer lines, and we needed everything to be cleared and graded before we could do anything.”
Now in the design and planning phase, Elm Street recently held a “charrette” to solicit feedback and ideas, held Jan. 22 at the Chambers at City Center. Roughly two dozen people attended the two-and-a-half-hour session, which had them break up into three groups, form ideas for different aspects of the project and rank their favorites at the end.
Casteel is now in the process of gathering the suggestions and assembling a list of preferred options.
“Some of the top things that stood out were gallery space and instruction in the Reeves house and education across the board, whether it be visual arts or doing stuff in the garden,” McLeod said.
She said education was the prevailing theme.
“It was education at all three tables — how do we do things for the kids, for the community and serve everyone from children to adults with classes and instruction,” McLeod said, adding that attendees also made suggestions about events that could be held at the venue, such as weddings and possibly installing a stage for outdoor musical and/or theatrical performances.
“They also suggested looking at programming all throughout the week, not just on the weekend, and how to do programming in the winter,” she said. “Having the charrette was like saying, here’s our blank canvas, here are the few things that we know have to be done.”
One aspect the board of directors knows it doesn’t want to change is the century-old farmhouse, which she said is one of the last standing historical homes that Woodstock has that hasn’t been fully renovated and maintained.
“We don’t want to lose that history,” she said.
Another, smaller home on the property, known as the Granger house, will also be in the mix, but its use will likely be more as a support structure than a focal point.
“It doesn’t have the same historical background that the Reeves house has,” McLeod said. “It’s very small in size, so it could be public restrooms or we could look at it for office space.”
The focus of the charrette was on the event green, woodland garden, Reeves House and instructional gardens. McLeod said a large space behind the farmhouse could be the site of an outdoor kitchen.
“There’s multiple ideas on how to use that space,” she said. “Another idea was using the history, bringing in the orchards they originally had on the farm. The Reeves house was one of the very few in-town farms that they had in Woodstock. We have plats and drawings that date back to when it was built in the late 1890s. It had orchards, outbuildings, chicken coops, and there was a full-blown farm that was in what was considered the city limits. So we’re looking at how to incorporate that history back into it and some of that planning and programming.”
McLeod said she felt the design session was a success. She said their goal would be to “cross-pollinate” with others such as the Cherokee Arts Center to offer programming in Canton and Woodstock and other partnerships, like with gardening organization GROW.
McLeod said raising the remaining $500,000 would complete Phase I of the arts center. Phase 2 would consist of building a theater, estimated to cost about $2 million.
The city leases the property to Elm Street with automatic renewals that go before the City Council for approval. Long-term, the organization’s vision would be to purchase the property.
McLeod said the city has been a major supporter of the project, and has been helpful in facilitating the nonprofit in applying for grants that wouldn’t otherwise be applicable to them.
“Long-term, I think it’s Elm Street’s vision to be able to own the property, but there’s no reason for us to do that now because it benefits all of us,” she said.
