Bill aims to promote arts districts throughout R.I.

A bill introduced earlier this year would expand the duties of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts to allow it to work more closely with state agencies and departments in creating arts districts in Rhode Island communities, and provide guidance to those communities.

“We’ve been doing things related to this, working with arts districts throughout the state” since the council’s inception in 1967, said Randall Rosenbaum, executive director of the arts council.

“This is describing things we’re already doing, and this would recognize us as a state-designated entity, and it won’t cost any more money.”

According to Rosenbaum, coordinating the state’s efforts to establish arts districts – Westerly, Woonsocket, Providence, Warren, Tiverton, Newport, Pawtucket and Warwick have established arts districts already – would allow a sharing of experiences and resources and provide guidance for other communities looking to establish them.

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The arts districts are designed to promote, revitalize and redevelop neighborhoods by creating a thriving arts community, which officials say would provide economic and community benefits to the state. The goal of the legislation is to give the council the authority to coordinate activity to help implement and create these districts.

“Giving (the council) an enhanced role allows them to operate within their existing structure but do more,” said Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty, who is also chairman of the R.I. Small Business Advisory Council. “This will give the State Council on the Arts the power to work directly with the state departments and agencies.”

The arts community in Rhode Island plays a major role in the community and economic development of the state, according to Fogarty and Rosenbaum. In 2000, the nonprofit segment of the creative economy sector in Rhode Island received $282.7 million in income and provided 8,703 jobs, according to the Cultural and Arts Policy Institute at Northeastern University. Among those jobs, 6,124 people were employed as artists. This industry paid the state $2.6 million in sales taxes, and total economic impact of the arts for fiscal 2000 was $316.8 million, according to the university.

“There are two segments to this bill. The first establishes incentives for artists to move into these specific areas of the communities (the arts districts),” Rosenbaum said. “If we bring them into an underutilized area, maybe a place that seems to close down at 5 p.m., they will stimulate economic development, bring in cafés and coffee shops, theaters and other commercial activities. It’s a really exciting way to re-energize a stagnant part of town, and the government is recognizing the role artists can play in these communities.”

Art and the artist communities have an impact on more than just the economy, however, according to Umberto Crenca, artistic director at AS220 in Providence.

“It does have a tremendous economic impact, but I think there are even deeper implications,” he said. “It creates a positive public perception of the community’s value of the arts.” As the first city to establish an arts district, “Providence has benefited from that.”

Arts and special districts specifically for that improve the “spiritual, emotional, intellectual health, the cultural health of the community,” Crenca said.

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