Bye-bye, old Piggly Wiggly! See who’s helping Carrboro’s ArtsCenter move west

After a couple of fits and starts in recent years, the ArtsCenter appears ready to move to a new two-story building on Jones Ferry Road.

A $1.6 million grant from The Nicholson Foundation announced Tuesday will boost a $5.5 million campaign for the construction of a new ArtsCenter at 303 Jones Ferry Road.

The new site is within walking distance of the current Main Street location, an old Piggly Wiggly that has been the ArtsCenter’s home since its founding in 1974.

It’s also across the street from the Orange Water and Sewer Authority, which will let the nonprofit use its parking lot after hours. Additional parking will be available at Carrboro Town Hall, about 850 feet from the site.

The Nicholson Foundation has been supporting the arts and entertainment nonprofit for nine years.

“The quality of teaching and management shines, and the spirit of the place is supportive, inclusive, and inspiring,” trustee Barbara McFadyen said in a news release. “All this is happening in an old grocery store with few windows! It is time for the ArtsCenter to have a home that can showcase the imagination within so that it can flourish, embrace, and inspire more members of our community.”

American Tobacco Campus expertise

The ArtsCenter’s board of directors approved the purchase of the Jones Ferry Road property about a year ago.

Matt Springer, who worked on the American Tobacco Campus in Durham and the CommunityWorx Thrift Shop, formerly the PTA Thrift Shop, are developing the project. The architects, Clearscapes of Raleigh, designed CAM Raleigh, the contemporary art museum in downtown Raleigh.

“We did an extensive search,” executive director Dan Mayer said at a community information meeting Jan. 8. “I think what became clear is the ArtsCenter wanted to stay in Carrboro. There aren’t many sites in Carrboro. I think we wanted to be downtown. We didn’t want to be all the way out (N.C.) 54 near the shopping centers.

“(We were) somewhat limited in sites that could accommodate the size and scope of what we wanted to do,” Mayer said. “So the site we chose has some limitations we’re working through.”

The site includes a stream that restricts the plot’s usefulness to a for-profit developer, but the project’s planners expect to use it to their advantage with an outdoor space and second floor balcony facing the stream.

Plans also call for a metal building to keep with the industrial nature of the surrounding area. In fact, the site is zoned for manufacturing, which suits the ArtsCenter’s needs, eliminating the need for a rezoning request and the extra time that would take.

The developers, however, do expect the town will require a conditional use permit for the building, which they hope to get in the third quarter of this year. That means construction is expected to take place from the fourth quarter of this year to the fourth quarter of 2021.

Programming to expand

The board has been very engaged in the site-selection process, President Bernadette Pelissier said at last week’s meeting.

“We are thrilled that we are going to have a new building and opportunities to expand some of our programming, and while we already have great programs, we’re gong to have better,” she said. “And some of you know that this building has some problems, air conditioning and some other things, and it’s time to move on.”

The current site has housed the ArtsCenter for about 45 years.

“When they built this building, they really had no idea all the ways it would be used,” Mayer said. “It’s used in inconceivable ways to the founder. We have developed our programs, and we need a new space that allows us to serve more people and allows us to serve more people better.”

For instance, Mayer said, the new studios would be updated, and there would be more capacity in the new ceramics studio.

At 20,000 square feet, the new site will be about as big as the current one, but as a purpose-built space, it will suit the center much better, Mayer said.

Earlier plans for the new building included parking underneath, but developers have since decided that is cost-prohibitive. Developers may still go with a three-story building, but current tentative plans call for two floors only.

The site will have 25 to 40 parking spaces, but in addition to the OWASA and Town Hall parking, the center has reached a deal with neighboring Wilkinson Supply to use its lot after business hours.

The current site’s theater holds 320, while the new theater will seat only 140. Mayer said the current theater is rarely filled to capacity.

Some attendees last week expressed concerns about the impact on the Lincoln Park neighborhood nearby, including along a foot path that runs near Prince Street. Developers said there would be landscaping requirements to buffer the property from the neighborhood.

There were plans to move the ArtsCenter to the town’s future library site at an existing parking lot at 203 S. Greensboro St., but the timing didn’t work out.

A previous attempt to find a new home — in an Arts and Innovation Center proposed for a 200 E. Main St. parking lot — was rejected by the town in 2015. That plan, a partnership with the Kidzu Children’s Museum, was for a four-story, 55,000-square-foot building.

For more information on the new ArtsCenter building and capital campaign go to artscenterlive.org/outreach/our-new-home.

This story was originally published January 14, 2020 at 3:54 PM.