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Arts District

Gerry LaBita, Founder and Producing DirectorMECA (Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts) is leading a collaborative effort to seek cultural designation from the Texas Commission on the Arts.  Arts-related, non-profit entities participating in this effort include Spacetaker and Theater LaB.   The commercial arts community is represented by the owners of Winter Street Studios (80 art studios), Glassworks, and the Art on Washington Gallery. Civic organizations involved in this collaboration include the First Ward Civic Council, and the Old Sixth Ward Neighborhood Association, and the Washington Avenue Coalition/Memorial Park Super Neighborhood (SN22). Also expected to join the effort are the Old Sixth Ward Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone and Redevelopment Authority, and Avenue Community Development Corporation, a local non-profit developer of affordable housing that has in the past partnered with Artspace, Inc. to convert a historic hospital located in the area into affordable live-work space for artists.

The effort to obtain cultural designation will be aimed at achieving broad-based community goals, including:

  1. to connect the arts more intimately to community development by linking the Downtown Theater District to MECA and the other arts organizations and entertainment venues in the Washington Avenue Corridor

  2. to stabilize and enhance area property values by encouraging revitalization of vacant, blighted, or underused properties into affordable housing and studios for artists

  3. to promote economic development by creating an identifiable area for producing, displaying, and marketing art

  4. to attract tourism by providing a destination that offers not only area-related activities, but also opportunities to explore Houston’s history in the Old Sixth Ward Protected Historic District, as well as opportunities to shop, dine, and be entertained at some of the city’s most popular restaurants and clubs on Washington avenue

  5. to create a cultural identity in which area residents, businesses owners, and developers will take pride.

This process is a labor and time intensive endeavor that will take us into the year 2011. We will keep you up to date as to our progress.