Press Release
Monday, December 22, 2014
Contact: Liz Swaine
Downtown Development Authority
318-222-7403
Downtown Shreveport Development Corporation Helps Complete Artist’s Tower
The Downtown Shreveport Development Corporation (DSDC), through a partnership with the Community Foundation, has awarded a $25,000 Structural Assistance Grant to the Kallenberg Artist’s Tower, a unique space created to house visiting artists-in-residency. This will be a completely new mission for the historic tower, which was built in the 1920s to hang and dry cotton hoses and for evacuation exercises. (When it was built, the highest building in downtown was just five stories.) It stands just behind the former Central Fire Station, which is now the Shreveport Regional Arts Council’s Central ARTSTATION. The Central ARTSTATION and now, the Kallenberg Artist’s Tower, are the epicenter of the 9-block art and culture district known as Shreveport Common.
“The Shreveport Regional Arts Council is grateful to receive the grant from the Downtown Shreveport Development Corporation for structural work to restore the former “Hose Tower” at the Central Fire Station into the Kallenberg Artist’s Tower at the Central ARTSTATION,” says SRAC Executive Director Pam Atchison. “Together the Kallenberg Family and DSDC have built the “tallest/smallest” home for visiting artists who will engage the Northwest Louisiana Arts Community to create new works of Art that enliven Shreveport and foster an UNcommon Cultural Community in Downtown.”
The transition from a space that was used to hang hoses 90 years ago to one that will be used as a residence required a total rehab and all of the expenses from design to construction is being paid for with a generous donation by the Kallenberg Family, long time patrons of the arts and supporters of the Shreveport Regional Arts Council.
“Having partners like the Kallenberg Family and the Shreveport Regional Arts Council make our downtown a more vibrant, dynamic and art-filled place,” says DSDC Executive Director Liz Swaine. “Members of the DSDC board were unanimous in their support of this project.”
DSDC wishes to thank the Community Foundation for its assistance and for ongoing support in efforts to strengthen downtown.
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