Leaking roofs and crumbling walls at Minnesota’s arts and cultural organizations

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“I am sinking fast into the money pit and I don’t want to drag you down with me. Save yourself while there’s still time!” — Tom Hanks (as Walter), “The Money Pit”

Arts news often shows up as extremes: a show that is dazzlingly good or horrifyingly bad, an exciting capital campaign or a debt-ridden, dramatic closure. These may not be hard-and-fast rules, but I ask you: When was the last time you read a fascinating article about a theater “hanging in there, kinda”?

Yet so goes it for most Minnesota theaters, venues and arts and cultural organizations. Except perhaps for those in a philanthropic-darling phase where funding comes in large, synchronous waves, can any truly say they are thriving? (And if so, could they share their sustainability plan in 500 characters or less, including spaces, please?)

Moving to Minnesota in 2003, I fell in love with the character of the historic brick buildings in northeast Minneapolis and the iconic cobblestone pathways between them. When the Great Recession began to take root, we organized to help keep artists in that neighborhood in place, worked to support ownership of buildings, and rallied around accessibility — all uphill battles even in a state flush with arts funding.

Fast-forward 15 years and we find ourselves in another moment of crisis. My work supporting the region’s creative and cultural districts continues to put me in contact with arts and culture spaces across the metro area. These organizations are cornerstones of their communities, and we are hearing from many of them about an increasingly urgent need for capital paired with an inability to reconcile the post-COVID cash flow. It’s a recipe ripe for another series of losses if we are not careful.

In addition to dwindling philanthropic funds, there’s a lack of sufficient infrastructure funding to address the leaking roofs, crumbling walls and aging pipes that smell like 100 years of city bottom. It’s not the sexiest grant to bring to the boardroom, but it’s still important. After all, who will fix the bathroom piping so the toilet doesn’t overflow during intermission? (It’s happened.)

We’re on the cusp of another pending disaster for the arts amid a market shift like the one we saw in 2008, only we now have the additional complication of an increasingly divisive and heated political environment coupled with the Airbnb market messing with real estate valuation.

What’s a community to do? What does a theater company do when ticket sales haven’t quite returned to pre-pandemic levels — and even before the pandemic, ticket sales were not where we needed them to be? And how many spaces are we willing to surrender to market forces while we figure this out?

Across the state, theaters, venues and cultural spaces are being held together with tenacity and spit instead of brick and mortar. But artists are running out of spit. (Besides, it’s probably not safe to mix spit and concrete during flu season.)

There’s a ray of hope. Artists, organizers and elder activists are strategizing with the hindsight and the knowledge that together we can make incredible things happen. Last month, my colleagues and I began hosting a working group that has been meeting every other week through the end of the year to address the issue. We know each part of the ecosystem is important — the districts, the buildings and the artists themselves. The co-hosts of these conversations are LISC Twin Cities, Propel Nonprofits and Springboard for the Arts, with moral support from foundations and funders that recognize the importance and urgency of what’s at hand.

Dawn Bentley, executive director of the Minnesota Fringe, said at one of our recent working groups that its audiences are still down 40% from pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, prices have gone up significantly in the past few years, with some vendors charging 300% more.

“We’re breaking even this year, but what can be done to make sure we’re not moving into deficit territory?” she said. “And what will happen to the remaining organizations with affordable spaces serving the theater community that aren’t being adequately supported?”

We are looking to what comes next, and how our organizations can help along the way. We are doing this by assessing the environment, which includes a list of the arts and cultural institutions in the state and what their capital and accessibility needs are. What level of investment is needed to get our buildings out of disrepair?

As was noted in reporter Jenna Ross’ Nov. 26 story (”Businesses helped make Minnesota’s arts scene. Will shrinking support break it?”), the vibrancy of Minnesota’s arts economy was built in part by the corporate sector, which benefited from the way the arts enhance Minnesotans’ quality of life. This sentiment is echoed by those seasoned in arts advocacy who are working across the aisle to continue cultivating a healthy environment for the arts.

Sarah Fossen from Minnesota Citizens for the Arts noted during a recent panel: “Why would big corporations like DigiKey and Polaris and Hormel care about the arts, when it might have little to do with their product line? Because the first thing all of their employees will say when being asked to accept a role or relocate is, ‘What is there to do? Can my kids take cello lessons, can my husband still act in a play? Does it still have the cultural amenities that will make life livable?’”

Ask any investor what’s a key component to making a project thrive and they will say: a long-term perspective. It’s the same for an investment in the arts — from the buildings to the artists and creative programming that breathe life into them.

We have advocated and will continue to advocate for funds to support infrastructure and accessibility. We’ll be encouraging funders to support not just the capital campaigns when they are shiny, but the long-term resources to adequately activate and maintain the buildings themselves — old, new and in-between.

Here’s hoping we’ll soon be fixing foundations with bricks and mortar instead of tenacity and spit.

Jamie Kalakaru-Mava, @purenoumena, works at LISC Twin Cities. She is an author and artist who lives in Bloomington. If you are interested in joining the last virtual community conversation on Dec. 16, you can email her at jschumacher@lisc.org to get a meeting link.