in May Fort Wayne City Council approved arts campus Fort Wayne as a cultural district last month the Indiana Arts Commission designated arts campus Fort Wayne as a cultural district on a state level.

>> So what is this distinction mean for our region?

Hold that thought because meanwhile our area's arts and cultural nonprofits are getting ready to go live following the pandemic challenges of the recent months and we'll hear more about that connection between the arts, creativity community and the economy of this week's prime time.

Good evening ever since.

With us today is Susan Mendenhall.

She is president of Art United of Greater Fort Wayne and we'd invite you to join our conversation any time.

>> If you have any questions or comments, just call the number on your screen as we widen out and welcome Susan to the program.

>> Thank you for being here.

It's a pleasure to be here.

This is great.

What does it mean to be a state cultural district?

>> Well, we are very excited about having this designation by the Indiana Arts Commission.

The Indiana Arts Commission manages the state cultural district program.

We are joining now 15 cultural districts throughout the state of Indiana that has this designation and a cultural district is a defined area with a high concentration of arts and cultural amenities in Fort Wayne we think about this as the Fort Wayne Museum of Art ,the History Center, the our center which is where the Fort Wayne Ballet and Art Link are located, the arts United Center.

A lot of people know that the civic theater perform there in the U.S. that are there as well as a few other locations in downtown Fort Wayne .

And what's important to know about cultural districts is that they are economic drivers and people come downtown to be able to to go to a show, go to a civic show forum is coming up this next weekend and a lot of people will be coming downtown and when they're downtown they also spend money at local restaurants and Americans for the Arts tells us that the average arts attendee spends thirty one dollars and forty seven cents per event per person outside of the cost of admission on local restaurants and retail.

So it's no wonder that cultural districts are very attractive for nearby development like the landing and riverfront and all of the wonderful things that are happening downtown.

We're very excited to be in close proximity to them but also be a concentration of arts and cultural activities .

>> Sure, all of that funding is that discretionary income that stays local.

>> I believe that's right and with the power of the arts it is always worth noting that the 18 arts and culture groups that you referenced in an editorial not too long ago something about reaching a combined audience of nearly well over nine hundred and five thousand but stimulating nearly 50 million in economic input.

That's right.

And that's about half of that 50 billion was spending by these organizations themselves on payroll on their missions and their programs and this group of organizations 18 organizations certainly includes those organizations that are on the arts campus but also include the Embassy Theater and Science Central Fort Wayne Trails and several others about half of that economic impact that 50 million dollars is spending by patrons and audience members when they come downtown or when they go to an event.

They're also spending those dollars on local restaurants, retail, transportation and child care.

>> The synergy we're talking about with the arts campus and it's it's affinity with downtown and so forth.

One of the officers of the Indiana Arts Commission had called it a community committed to collaboration in addition to being really neat alliteration that also had to be a nice affirmation for all involved whether they knew they were related to the arts or not.

You know, in Fort Wayne in northeast Indiana we are so organized and our leadership tends to be so aligned.

>> It's why several years ago we were selected as a regional cities initiative region and it's no coincidence that our arts and culture nonprofits work very closely together.

>> We share resources, we share spaces, we plan together and we work through challenges and tough times together.

>> You mentioned WABA as well as another designee and as they are within the sounds of our voices a shout out to the Wabash Cultural District two and a half miles of walkable Touraine World class performing arts center bike trails, public arts pieces.

My guess is that as one might visit Wabash and then visit Fort Wayne and then go down to Indianapolis they are all cultural districts but they are each their own with their own fingerprint.

That's right.

Each cultural district has been developed in a way that mirrors the interests and needs of their communities.

And in Fort Wayne we have developed arts campus Fort Wayne in Wabash of course they have the wonderful Honeywell Foundation and so many cultural amenities that have come together to create the Wabash Cultural District and it looks very different from the cultural districts you might find in Lafayette, Indiana or Carmel or elsewhere .

>> Yeah, in fact the National Register of Historic Places designated all of downtown Wabash in nineteen eighty six because of its architectural significance.

>> So there is that which it does go back to the old saying tell us about what arts campus Fort Wayne is.

>> How would you describe that to somebody?

Well arts campus Fort Wayne has been developed since about nineteen fifty five.

There was a group of leaders at the time that are looking at changes to downtown and at the time the interstate highway system was coming in and a lot of retail was moving out of downtowns not only in Fort Wayne but throughout the United States to move closer to where cars were and downtowns began to take on a new and different purpose a cultural purpose in our community.

The area between Clinton and Lafayette Street just south of that elevated rail so south of Headwaters Park was identified as an area that should be part of our first redevelopment project.

Our community leaders got to work and they looked at other communities that we're looking at revitalizing their downtowns at the time this would be in the mid 50s and got on the phone with turns out John D. Rockefeller the third and New York City and talked with him about their plans to develop Lincoln Center in New York City and modeled the development of now known as Arts United, then known as the Fine Arts Foundation.

>> After the idea behind Lincoln Center and at that time by nineteen sixty one they had done a needs assessment and found that facilities were a real need for our burgeoning arts and cultural scene in our community and the way the story goes that they went around the country and they interviewed the best architects of the era Eero Saarinen and several others of that ilk.

Miss Bandera was another one and they settled on a very slim margin on hiring Louis Kahn who is considered the foremost architect of his era and with Louis Kahn they envisioned an 11 building cultural complex at that time this would be about nineteen sixty one when this first vision came about, the first building that they identified that would be needed would be a theater for the Civic Theater and so they set off to begin raising the funds to build the civic theater now known today as the Arts United Center and Louis Design this building.

It is his only commission in the Midwest.

It's his only performing arts venue in his whole canon in the world.

>> So it is an internationally important work of art as a piece of architecture.

>> He was at opening day and actually opening week and he died tragically six months later.

>> So it was his last opening during his lifetime.

>> So while we do not have eleven Louis Kahn buildings in downtown Fort Wayne , our community over the last fifty years have progressively developed a cultural district based on that that wonderful vision that they embarked on back in nineteen sixty one.

So by nineteen seventy three we had opened up the Arts United Center by nineteen eighty four the Fort Wayne Museum of Art became a building by nineteen eighty eight the history center took Old City Hall what was Old City Hall and made it a historical museum and bar street market became part of that by nineteen ninety we had acquired what is now known as the whole Community Arts Center which is where Cinema Center and Dance Collective are now located.

>> Arch became an organization as part of a cultural district when they renovated the Alexander T Rankin house who is an abolitionist in his era and and so on.

So in two thousand we began work on the Our Center for Arts and Culture and over twenty ten rather and by twenty fourteen we had opened up a black box theater and so now today we're in a place where we have accomplished so much of Kohn's original vision and a few years ago Arts United knew that we would need to start thinking about caring for some of our historic buildings, particularly the Arts United Center as it reaches about fifty years in age and we had the opportunity to ask the community what do you need in this renovation?

>> What should this building reflect about local arts and cultural scene?

How can we do this project in a way that's really going to meet the needs of arts and culture organizations as well as patrons of all abilities and ages.

>> And so the state cultural district designates and comes along at a very important time in that dialog about how we go from here.

>> That's right.

That's right.

At a time when we are looking at taking the next steps in our cultural districts development and we did receive the state designation and are really excited about the opportunity to partner with our community with arts and culture organizations, with our local elected organizations and our local businesses to really bring this cultural district to life and help fuel its development going forward.

>> Yeah, so much of that life seemed to be put on hold with just about every other kind of life over the last 18 months.

What has the state of the arts journey been for you watching from your position with the arts United?

>> We we know it's been difficult for those that base their business models on performances and welcoming folks through doors where are we now?

>> Well, we are in a great place, Bruce said.

I'll tell you that during the pandemic we found that the superpower of arts and culture organizations is to bring us together and covid-19 was truly a kryptonite to that superpower.

But arts and culture organization did what they did do best which is be creative, be innovative early on in the pandemic we got together with about seventeen arts and cultural executive directors and leaders and board chairs and we started to think about well how how do we get through this time together when we're not able to to gather people together in person to ensure the health and safety of our community.

And we we determined that we needed to be very active in community life even when we couldn't do that in person and all of the major eighteen arts and culture organizations that we worked with were able to stay very active in community life .

They were able to be creative and be innovative and do shows outside when they would usually do them inside, be able to do things like taking Nutcracker and performing and on TV and making it available to the entire community instead of in a theater.

>> And the list goes on and on and on.

You theater for example did radio shows which was super cool but because of that because they remained active in community life we know that the community values them that much more today we're seeing the arts and culture organizations who are reopening live events really doing so very successfully.

>> I was actually at my daughter's youth theater camp performance this afternoon and learned that the Fort Wayne new theater summer camps have all sold out and sold well beyond where they thought they would be, which is just a really great sign.

>> People are ready for the return of arts and culture and what a wonderful transition because we happen to have a Fort Wayne youth theater story and an audience is unlimited story about how coming through the dynamic days of covid-19 are really community success stories.

>> Take a look what we do think is important to the community because it is one of the first places that you get a chance to explore theater arts.

It gives a place for families to come and experience theater in a cost effective way and really get them ingrained into the arts with the pandemic we had to cancel performances and programing the first production that we did for the year with Stuart Little because we perform a show outside at Art United we were able to fit one hundred and ninety people out there per performance and we did eighty five percent of capacity on that.

So I consider the entire thing a win during a pandemic we as an organization knew that we had to maintain our mission the more shows I began I realized that I can't trash acting.

I can't do that even if I don't do that as my everything I definitely need to incorporate that or I won't be who I am.

You theater helps a lot and without it I don't know what I would do.

I don't audiences unlimited is that's forty eight season of arts programing for people who are isolated who don't have access, can't get out of their homes perhaps or live in a nursing home.

Our belief is that everybody deserves and needs arts in their life and the arts are so impactful to our soul and to our joy that we have audiences unlimited and life without the academy have been in partnership with each other for about four years now it was established out of a need for music here at our program.

The impact music has on our students is immense.

A lot of our students don't have a chance to release feelings that they have and through music they're able to do that.

They also are just able to have fun.

Music brings a source of fun here at the school that some of our other activities can do.

>> The pandemic impacted audiences unlimited in a very significant way.

If we couldn't interact with people which music and interaction with the musicians is so important when you're having an audience and participating in a live performance audience is unlimited really creatively pivoted to provide new programing that we had never experienced before for videos while music and live music and live dance were very normal having to videotape and edit and send them out in a format that was accessible to our facility partners was a big accomplishment for us a life without academy work with audiences unlimited to make shows possible just by collaboration and continuing to communicate with each other to put in things that would make it safe for the program to take place here tonight.

It has been very important to audiences of Limited to help us be resilient during this pandemic and to survive through operating support through helping us pay our musicians and continue to pay them for the pandemic and to continue our mission of access to the arts.

>> And so their support has been instrumental in keeping us vibrant.

Resilience really is the word perseverance is right behind it.

I would imagine these these were times we were making up operational decisions daily basis all the time and it seems everyone found a way to be you know, to grow through it.

I guess that's right.

Arts and culture organizations just like any business had to adapt how how they stayed operational over the last year.

But arts and culture organizations in particular who exist to bring people together, they saw sharp declines in ticket revenue overall revenues for these organizations were reduced by thirty one percent and that includes a lot of the pandemic assistance that they received but earned revenues from ticket sales admission's class enrollments decreased by over 70 percent which was very significant.

We were lucky in our community to have some significant investment from some major foundations the our foundation McMillan Foundation, several others the James Foundation so that we could form a two point eight million dollar resilience fund and be able to help assist arts and culture organizations as they transferred their programing to a different method over this last year.

>> And so now as you your word reawakening is is happening within the arts and there are billboards to encourage you to think about how to go boldly forward and to either go live or go live but just go for crying out loud, go live.

>> We are so excited that arts and culture organizations are reopening in person live programing and are inviting you to take part in that.

They are of course monitoring health and safety guidelines by the Allen County Department of Health of the CDC and take your health and safety very much and into consideration.

But they are providing these in-person opportunities and people are coming out they are so excited to to get back into opportunities to celebrate community and celebrate life in our community.

>> And the big block party is still on for the end of August.

That's right.

We will be hosting the Taste of the Arts Festival at the end of August.

It is always the last Saturday before Labor Day and this year Taste of the Arts will be expanded beyond the arts campus but will also include the landing and promenade park which which was another one of those synergy things too wondering too to what extent the campus and riverfront and you know, it just seems to be exponential additions.

>> You know all of these places were designed to be very walkable and we're so excited to be able to expand the footprint of taste of the arts but also engage artists and restaurants in different ways.

I think for those of you who are out there that are planning to come downtown to experience what our communities, arts and cultural scene has to offer, you're going to be so impressed by this year's event and along with that there is additional information available online the restaurants and ultimately the schedules.

>> And so and for those who thought it was kind of neat to connect via their computer, there are still so little a little bit of that.

>> Yeah, we will continue to maintain some online presence during tests of the arts and we're excited to be able to share that in the weeks to come.

But you know what the community is telling us is that they want to get outside.

Taste of the Arts is a mostly outdoor festival.

It features plan painters.

>> It features the art link art market.

It features about seven performance stages and arts campus on the landing on the Russos Plaza and then Promenade Park and it will go from about 11:00 to about nine p.m. on Saturday August twenty eight well which is about an hour and a half from now.

>> Yes, it seems anymore and as you are there you will also be able to note for future reference the arts tick's community box office location.

>> That's right.

Artistic community box office is a one stop shop for tickets to 11 arts and culture organizations organizations like the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and the Civic Theater, the Fort Wayne Ballet and it's located in the Arts United Center on Main Street.

>> Now the new home I believe for the Fort Wayne Philharmonic's ticket for its First Presbyterian.

>> That's right First Press University of Saint Francis Arena dinner Theater.

>> We're just so excited to have this one stop shop which makes it really convenient for our community members to access tickets and information about arts and cultural happenings via performing arts organizations.

>> Yeah, yeah.

All of this speaks to the success at the end of the creative community pathway that it seemed everyone took a walk along for a long time and the the line about how it takes years to be an overnight success and continue to go through that as you reflect on that process for what things are now available to to offer our community because of that work.

>> What do you think about you know, I think about how lucky we are as a community to truly have an opportunity to stand on the shoulders of the giants that came before us.

>> We have inherited in our current generation just a tremendous investment in arts and culture organizations that work together that serve more than nine hundred and six thousand people per year and you are really embedded in the fabric of community life and education and the way we spend time together with our families and the way that we age and the way that you know, we we go live and you know, our communities is very fortunate to have the type and the quality of arts and cultural sector and seeing that we have and you can start taking inventory of all of that and more by just allowing your mouse to lead you to the following website.

Art United or G and there is the phone number there as well.

>> So many ways to get connected, stay connected and to answer that question, what do you want to do this weekend?

>> Well, this weekend there's lots of opportunities.

>> I believe the Fort Wayne Philharmonic will be performing at the falling theater so make sure you get your tickets and check it out literally the sounds of summer and the sights and sounds again Art Schneider, Doug and again our thanks for having the chance to see and hear the comments of Susan Mendenhall, the president of Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne .

>> Thanks for coming by.

Thanks for the opportunity.

You betcha.

And thank you for allowing us to be a part of your weekend for all of us with prime time, I'm Bruce Haines.

Take care.

Thanks for watching and we'll see you soon.

>> Goodnight