Evanston City Council’s upcoming vote on terminating the lease of the Evanston Art Center’s current tenant of the Harley Clarke mansion, could put the organization completely out of business, a director said.
The Human Services Committee approved a motion Monday night to terminate the art center’s lease on the mansion, which would require vacating the building within the next 240 days. City Council will vote on the motion at its next meeting Monday, and the decision will conclude months of heated and controversial debate surrounding the fate of the Harley Clarke mansion, 2603 Sheridan Road, and its tenant.
“A vote for 240 days is basically a vote to close us down. That’s really what it comes down to,” said Keith Brown, Evanston Art Center’s director of education.
At the meeting, the committee rejected the art center’s request for another two years in the building, which Brown said would be the minimum amount of time necessary to find a new location, raise money and move. He said the organization has spent the last two years talking to architects, calculating the square footage their new location would need and searching the commercial real estate market for possible spaces. Still, they have yet to find a viable option for a new location.
“One of the things that’s frustrating is people don’t realize how much time it takes and how big of an art center we actually are,” Brown said. “If they vote 240 days, they’re doing major harm to the visual arts community in Evanston and our center. It’s questionable whether we’ll be able to bounce back from that.”
He claimed the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago took 10 years to acquire, renovate and move into their current property.
City manager Wally Bobkiewicz said the city has been helping the nonprofit find alternative sites for the last two years and is willing to continue offering assistance if needed. Citing the building’s continued deterioration, he said the city wants to find “long-term viability” for the building now that the art center has indicated it does not wish to remain in the building permanently.
“We’ve been talking for the last two and a half years about next steps and making sure that the building is improved,” Bobkiewicz said. “In the meantime, the building is continuing to face the elements, and we want to make sure that as soon as possible we have a solution for the building to move forward.”
Bobkiewicz has been working with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which last month expressed interest in using the mansion as office space for the federally-funded Coastal Management Program and a potential public coastal education center.
Ald. Mark Tendam (6th) was the only committee member to oppose issuing the lease termination, saying it would take longer than 240 days for the department to formalize plans with the city and move in.
“I think any reasonable organization that takes over is going to need to work with the art center to work on some compromise,” Tendam said. “There might be ways of someone starting to fix up the building while the art center is still vacating. I think we need to keep an open mind and try to realize we’re all kind of working on the same goals here.”
Tendam said he plans to continue opposing the art center’s lease termination, though he expects it will likely be approved at City Council.
The department will make an official proposal to the city in April or May and move into the mansion in 2015 if City Council agrees to terminate the art center’s lease, Bobkiewicz said.
Correction: A previous version of this story misquoted city manager Wally Bobkiewicz. The quote has been corrected. The Daily regrets the error.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @kellyagonsalves
