The first innovative fine arts gallery in full collaboration with nightlife entertainment, based in the heart of the Historic Warehouse District of Downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Now planning an ongoing schedule of exhibits and production editions of a wide format of events that focus on the benefit of the arts, artists, local businesses, sponsors, and the social community.

 

Most of us appreciate the intrinsic benefits of the arts—their beauty and vision; how they inspire, soothe, provoke, and connect us. When it comes time to make tough funding choices, however, elected officials and business leaders need to have strong and credible data that demonstrate the economic benefits of a vibrant arts and culture industry.

By every measure, the results are impressive, Nationally, the arts and culture industry generates $166.2 billion in economic activity annually—a 24 percent increase in just the past five years. That amount is greater than the Gross Domestic Product of most countries. This spending supports 5.7 million full-time jobs right here in the United States—an increase of 850,000 jobs since our 2002 study. What’s more, because arts and culture organizations are strongly rooted in their communities, these are jobs that necessarily remain local and cannot be shipped overseas.

Our industry also generates nearly $30 billion in revenue to local, state, and federal governments every year. By comparison, the three levels of government collectively spend less than $4 billion annually to support arts and culture—a spectacular 7:1 return on investment that would even thrill Wall Street veterans. 

Arts and culture organizations—businesses in their own right—leverage additional event-related spending by their audiences that pumps vital revenue into restaurants, hotels, retail stores, and other local businesses. When patrons attend a performing arts event, for example, they may park their car in a toll garage, purchase dinner at a restaurant, and eat dessert after the show. Valuable commerce is generated for local merchants. Studies show that the typical attendee spends $27.79 per person, per event, in addition to the cost of admission. When a community attracts cultural tourists, it harnesses even greater economic rewards. Nonlocal audiences spend twice as much as their local counterparts ($40.19 vs. $19.53). Arts and culture are magnets for tourists, and tourism research repeatedly shows that cultural travelers stay longer and spend more. 

Whether serving the local community or out-of-town visitors, a vibrant arts and culture industry helps local businesses thrive. Right now, cities around the world are competing to attract new businesses as well as our brightest young professionals. International studies show that the winners will be communities that offer an abundance of arts and culture opportunities. As the arts flourish, so will creativity and innovation—the fuel that drives our global economy. This is inspiring news for those whose daily task is to strengthen the economy and enrich quality of life. No longer do business and elected leaders need to choose between arts and economic prosperity. Nationally, as well as locally, the arts mean business.

History:
The Warehouse District is a nationally recognized historic district located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It is roughly bound by Front Avenue, Superior Avenue, West 3rd Street, and West 10th Street.

On September 30, 1982, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Cleveland Warehouse District. On February 21, 2007, its boundary was increased to include 1384 to 1410 West 10th Street.

In the first half of the 19th century, this neighborhood was part of Cleveland's original residential area. Later in the century, it became the center of Cleveland's wholesale commercial area, and was occupied by warehousing and distribution terminals for more than 100 years. But after warehouse traffic moved elsewhere, it fell into serious disrepair with empty, run-down warehouses.

After the late 1980s, the Warehouse District became a hot night spot for twenty-somethings and urban professionals, following a pattern pioneered in Cleveland by the Flats entertainment district, which it ultimately supplanted as the city's premier weekend place-to-be.

The metamorphosis to the Warehouse District's current state began with the opening of Hilarities Comedy Club in the late 1980s (Hilarities has since moved to E. 4th Street). The transformation of the district initially sought to attract artists in live-work spaces, but rent and popularity became too high, and drove artists to nearby Cleveland neighborhoods of Tremont or the St. Clair Superior.

Artists Steven B. Smith and S. Judson Wilcox were two early "urban pioneers": artists who settled the Warehouse District in Cleveland in 1981. Artists, musicians and renegades moved there to revel in Cleveland's industrial beauty.

Smith's spot in the warehouse became a gathering spot for other artists in the building, including S. Judson Wilcox, Melissa Jay Craig (AKA "Field Marshal May Midwest"), Laszlo Gyorki, Ken Nevadomi, Randy Rigutto, Jay Clements, Beth Wolfe and others. Guests were offered keepsakes of miniature toy soldiers, babies in plastic bubbles or poetry.

Spaces Gallery was located on the first floor, making the warehouse the de facto epicenter of creative activity.

The affordability of Cleveland neighborhoods periodically caused mass migrations of artists. In the 80s, Smith was one of the urban pioneers to move into the Warehouse District. In 1985, he was one of many artists who moved from the warehouses to Tremont, in the typical pattern where artists move into undesirable but inexpensive neighborhoods, fixing up old buildings in which to live and work.

Although more than half of the original eight-block area has been razed and replaced by parking lots, by 2000 the remaining restored buildings were home to many restaurants and clubs. West Sixth Street is known as the heart of the district and on this street can be found live music at the Blind Pig, the Velvet Dog's rooftop patio bar, high-end Lebanese cuisine at Taza, and the restaurant and bar Panini's. The Metropolitan Cafe, Blue Pointe Grill, and Johnny's Downtown serve food on W. 6th as well, while the Cabaret Dada theater has provided improvisational comedy for over a decade.

The neighborhood has seen many of the rehabilitated warehouses converted to office and residential space. The ornate Victorian age facades of these historic warehouses are often preserved and restored, while the interiors of the buildings experience complete transformation into contemporary and trendy spaces. Its apartments and condominiums are responsible for a large portion of downtown Cleveland's recent population growth. Most of the remaining structures have been rehabilitated, and developers have started to plan and build infill construction projects.