Arts, shopping, action

Smallwood center culture venue floated

Friday, May 9, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Image courtesy of Saul Centers An artist’s rendering of the Smallwood Village center, which has been proposed as the home of a cultural arts venue. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Next weekend, the Charles County Arts Alliance, in conjunction with Smallwood owner Saul Centers and Charles County Commissioner Gary V. Hodge (D), will host an open house in a suite of vacant offices in the Smallwood Center to hear from the community about what they want in a community arts center.

For the past year, Hodge and the alliance have been working with Saul Centers on an arts space concept that would draw visitors back into the largely vacant interior of the center.

Saul is completing an overhaul of the center, which includes extending Post Office Road directly into it, making access even easier.

Under the plan being considered by Saul and the county, the county government would lease 8,600 square feet on the second floor of the village center, directly across the bridge from the current American Community Properties Trust office, for as little as $30,000 a year.

The space would be administered by the alliance for use as art, music, drama, dance or writing studios as well as classrooms or conference rooms. The partners are even considering using the old movie theater as a performance space.

According to the arts alliance, Hodge was instrumental in brokering the deal with Saul. Hodge said the county is currently conducting a feasibility study of how to implement an arts center.

‘‘I was amazed at the quality of the space,” Hodge said Wednesday.

Hodge said that Saul views the arts center concept ‘‘as a way of restoring the vibrancy of the center,” and added, ‘‘We’ve been very fortunate to have the support of Saul.”

Hodge said he feels a strong attachment to the center, given his lifelong interest in the arts and the fact that he once lived in the nearby Bannister neighborhood.

Alliance President Diane Rausch echoed Hodge’s gratitude in a prepared statement, and added, ‘‘This is an outstanding, historic and exciting opportunity for the arts community to come together and help us create the first-ever multipurpose community center in Charles County dedicated to promoting all the arts.”

Rausch said the center was the first concrete outcome of the alliance’s Arts Vision 20⁄20 master plan for building the arts community in Charles County.

The May 17 and 18 open house will be held at Space 235 in the Smallwood Village Center from 2 to 5 p.m. both days. Alliance Administrator Therese Thiedeman called the open house ‘‘a unique opportunity for you ... to tell us your wants and need to further your growth as artists and arts organizations. We are only limited by our imaginations.”