A $5 million project is bringing CVS Highlander Charter School and CityArts together under one roof, in a now-vacant building at 891 Broad St., Providence, were they plan to move in September.
The 32,000-square-foot building, erected in 1910, already housed CityArts until January of last year. It’s now being turned into a school and an after-school and summer arts center.
“It’s not a merger, but at the same time, we’re intertwined,” said Barbara Wong, executive director of CityArts. “We have the same hopes, the same vision and the same dream.”
Talks between the two organizations began three years ago, as CityArts was contemplating how to fix up the building, which was in major disrepair, while keeping its programs free.
Meanwhile, CVS Highlander, which has a 19,000-square-foot building at 45 Greeley St., off Charles Street, wanted to expand and move closer to South Providence.
“We had always planned to be located in South Providence, but there was a lack of usable space for us in the beginning,” said Jim Donahue, executive director and CEO of CVS Highlander. “We were fortunate to find a building in the North End, but we always knew the building was not going to be big enough to meet the growth plan of the school.”
With 234 students in grades K through eight, it’s “tight” inside the building, he said. “And we don’t have a library or computer space. We’ve built out every inch of space. The new building will provide us with that important supplemental space.”
The new space will include a library, a digital media lab, five arts classrooms and gallery space – all available for CityArts programs after school hours and in the summer.
The CityArts team, for its part, is not only thrilled with the new amenities, but also with the simple fact that the program is staying in the neighborhood and in the building it has occupied for the last decade.
“It was a place where all kids and families could come and have a connection with arts and culture,” Wong said.
The nonprofit bought the building from Berkander Co., which was facing bankruptcy, with help from the city and corporate sponsors. Berkander stayed on as a tenant, but it moved out in 2003, leaving 16,000 square feet unused. Plus there was the needed repair work.
“We realized to fulfill the dream this building needed a major insurgence of money,” Wong said. “And we didn’t have the capacity to enter into a capital campaign.”
They considered selling the building and downsizing, but Wong said it just felt wrong.
“We kept coming back to that this location was so important to the community,” she said. “CityArts takes its responsibility to the community seriously.”
CVS Highlander shared that sentiment, and soon CityArts decided to donate the building to the school, which in turn agreed to pay for the repairs and upgrades to create a state-of-the-art space for both organizations. Through the partnership CityArts will not pay any rent or operational expenses for the building.
“It gives us chills, because it will be so beautiful,” said Wong.
Donahue said the project, which is being financed in part by donations from CVS/Caremark Corp., Textron Inc., Fidelity Investments and the Champlin Foundations, aims to create a model for collaboration between public schools and nonprofits.
“We’re trying to create a model of a public school that serves as a neighborhood hub of community services and resources,” Donahue said. “It’s a more efficient use of public school facilities, and it takes from the nonprofits the burden of ‘Where are you going to locate? How are you going to pay for that?’ For them to have to deal with space expenses is such a drain to a nonprofit.”
Donahue is also excited about what the partnership will mean for CVS Highlander students.
“One of the appeals is that CityArts runs a high quality after-school program, and we’ll have them in the space with us to provide programming to our kids and to kids in the community,” he said. “And with the daytime program, we’re still working on it, but ideally they would work with our faculty to enhance our arts programming.”
“We will be able to provide arts programming and have a partner who also cares about the arts,” said Wong. “We hope that this will become a model, because nothing like this exists.”
