In 2002, St. Laurence Elementary School and St. Laurence Church on Chicago’s South Side were both closed and slated for the wrecking ball.
Just as the neighboring church and parish hall were being demolished, the elementary school was saved when artist Theaster Gates and his Rebuild Foundation purchased the property and raised more than $7.6 million to renovate the building into a community arts incubator
Seven years after saving St Laurence Catholic School from demolition on Chicago’s South Side, Theaster Gates’ Rebuild Foundation has finally broken ground on its largest project to date. (As with many projects, the pandemic interrupted the original planned completion date.) Mr Gates is transforming the dilapidated structure into a one-of-a kind community-centric arts incubator. Thanks in part to a $300,000 grant from from Gates’ Rebuild Foundation and JPMorgan Chase, after 20 years of dilapidation, the old Catholic elementary school building at 1353 E. 72nd St. is currently being rehabbed into a new home for South Side artisans and small business owners. The idea is to transform it into an entrepreneurship hub for south side artists and creatives. The $300,000 grant is part of JPMorgan Chase’s three-year, $40 million commitment to develop and support economic opportunities on the city’s South and Wests sides.
“We want to grow businesses; we want to grow so large that people have to leave their little classroom space and spill over to different spaces,” said Gates, a Chicago native. The grant funding will also sponsor the first class of the Artisan Entrepreneur Program, an intensive 10-week business development program which provides 30 creative entrepreneurs and makers with hands-on mentorship and training. “This project strengthens our ability to support artists and artisans with the tools, training, and resources that will enable them to experiment and create innovative projects in their own community. St. Laurence is as much about preserving Black space as it is about giving new life to creative possibilities on the South Side.” Just one block away the Artist Housing is also being planned.
The new Art Incubator will have a concentrated focus on developing new businesses. “Artists aren’t typically taught how to operate a business”, Gates said. “I think there’s so much South Shore needs in terms of amenities, services, hope and so our hope is by finishing St. Laurence school
we can turn this incubator into something that feel like an amenity to the whole neighborhood,” Mr. Gates
said.
It will eventually house art studios, co-working spaces and classrooms that will offer education on financial literacy. Gates shares, it’s imperative that artists’ minds are not only fostered creatively but through that educational component as well. “There’s a lack of knowledge around what it means to be creative, and then how do you utilize that creativity to make a life that’s sustainable for yourself? Black and brown people spend a lot of time being the talent for other infrastructural houses that then take our talent and do great things with our talent. But is it possible for us to build the houses our talent lives in? We want to build the talent, but also equip them with the tools to start an LLC, get legal advice, or just grow until they don’t need us anymore.”
The formerly abandoned school will be converted into more than 40,000 square feet of artist studios, classrooms for creative entrepreneurship courses, co-working floors, a laboratory for archival research, and more. Gates aims for St. Laurence to increase access to creative resources and amenities for underserved communities, while establishing a think tank and maker-space for people to engage with the Rebuild Foundation’s collections and archives. When programming kicks off, in fall 2023, the incubator may cement the South Side as a destination for art and design intelligence.
“As an emerging artist navigating the creative industries and my own curiosity about process and making, access to resources, space, and programs in my own neighborhood would have been vital to developing and refining my practice,” Gates says. “This project strengthens our ability to support artists and artisans with the tools, training, and resources that will enable them to experiment and create innovative projects in their own community. St. Laurence is as much about preserving Black space as it is about giving new life to creative possibilities on the South Side.” The former Catholic school in South Shore will be restored and transformed into another significant paragon of South Shore.
In fall 2023, the art incubator will cement South Shore as a destination for art and design intelligence.
