If you have been reading our newsletters, you know all about our new Creative Co-working space that will be opening this Spring. To get it all started, we moved our offices. In the snowstorm. In between Christmas and New Year’s. You don’t know fun until you’ve tried to move a refrigerator downhill on a dolly in the snow. (On the plus side, the office chair race down the sidewalk along Baltimore Avenue went MUCH faster than we anticipated.) With the New Year came a whirlwind of activity to get our computers working, printers connecting, internet operating, the basics. But we made it.
The LEDC is back up and running, and amidst paint fumes, drywall dust, and construction workers, we are busily making plans for 2018 and getting bids for work on the new studio spaces. While we wait for Spring, and our Grand Opening, let us take you through some history and our future plans for this building.
- 32 East Baltimore was the former Noel Schmidt Furniture building but before that it housed the Delaware County Electric Company. Customers paid their electric bills and also purchased new appliances here.
- A feasibility study and interior designs for our projects were made possible with grants from the Philadelphia Foundation and the Community Design Collaborative of Philadelphia.
- It’s been over a decade since the building has been occupied.
- Our vision is co-working membership studios for artists and creative professionals and we hope to be accepting members as early as March or April.
- We will have about 30 studios as well as 16 hot desks and a conference room available for rent. A Revolving Retail space will be available on a weekly basis for artists and creative folks to sell their wares.
- We were awarded a $95,000 grant through the Keystone Communities program by the PA Department of Community and Economic Development to help complete this project.
This move will enable us to continue our work in Lansdowne and host workshops and programs such as small business classes, networking meetings, and artist collaborations. We understand the high caliber of artists in this area and we want to give them affordable space to build on their creativity. Combine this with entertainment venues like Vinyl Revival, Jamey’s House of Music, the 20* 20 House (and someday the Lansdowne Theater), and sometime in the not-too-distant future, Lansdowne will become the arts and entertainment destination that we’ve always known it to be.
-Jeanne Ketchum