Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Pompano hopes arts center puts it on map.
Pompano Cultural Center opens in grand style
POMPANO BEACH — The Pompano Beach Cultural Center, the city’s showcase for all kinds of art, opened to the cheers of more than a thousand Thursday.
It’s the third and grandest effort to bring the city’s art scene into full flower and the opening was feted with drumming, dancing, singing and standing as still as a statue.
A dancer unrolled a large ribbon from her outfit for the official ribbon-cutting.
“We believe stars will be born right here,” said Mayor Lamar Fisher, extolling the facilities that will include video and computer workstations.
As the building went up, at 50 W. Atlantic Blvd., across from City Hall, the zigzagging roof and angled windows of no particular shape, was already turning heads. With 11 artistic companies taking up residence here, organizers predict the $19.8 million center’s influence will spread far beyond its unconventional walls.
“There are so many different opportunities that work together here,” said Alyona Ushe, president and CEO of the Cultural Arts Creatives, which is in charge of programming the acts taking stage.
In addition to the center’s main performance hall, with seating for 400 people, it also has a digital media arts center, conference space and an art gallery. Later in the year, the 47,000-square-foot building will also contain a county library.
The push to make the center a reality started out with library bond money in 1999. Complications arose, but so did the idea to make it a combination art center and library.
With walls in soothing blues, the Cultural Center is the third arts facility in three years that’s opened in the city’s
northwest section.
The first, Bailey Contemporary Arts Center, was once a falling-down hotel and now serves as offices for resident artists and a venue for poetry slams and exhibits.
The second, the Ali Building, was slated for demolition and now is a venue for performance and art, focused on the AfricanAmerican community.
These openings are aimed at transforming what officials call a blighted section of Pompano into a thriving corridor of shops, restaurants and residences. Taken together, these centers represent a total of $23.3 million in public investment taking the stage.
“Public development and investment spurs private investment,” Fisher said. “This puts the bow on our cultural arts.”
Christopher Longsworth, CEO of Invesca Development Group, said he would have never opened his three-phase housing development just off Atlantic Boulevard without the new amenities he’s seeing.
“Everyone can see the direction the corridor is going in,” Longsworth said.
His development is an eight-minute walk from the new Cultural Center. The first phase, called Koi, opened six months ago and all but three of 46 townhouses, priced at $400,000 to $700,000, have been sold, he said.
Next, he’ll be building 214 apartment rentals and then 90 lofts.
“We do believe the Cultural Center will appeal to our residents as well as a broad range of customers from outside of Pompano Beach,” he said.
In an effort to build more artistic excitement, the city engaged the nonprofit Cultural Arts Creatives to hold a juried selection of regional artists and artistic companies to become “residents” at the new center. Dozens applied for 11 residency spots. Those chosen range from a Japanese drumming company to a chamber orchestra, ballet to modern dance and theater companies that run the gamut.
It’s hoped that mixing these diverse artists together at monthly workshops will elevate everyone’s art, the Creatives’ Ushe explained.
Hannah Baumgarten, co-founding artistic director of Dance Now! Miami, was thrilled that her company was among the chosen.
“Having a library, media center, a multi-use performance space all under one roof — that’s the future,” she said.
But there were times when it seemed as if the center was never going to come to fruition, said Sandra King, city spokeswoman. After the city bought the land, for example, contamination from a lumber business and a gas station was discovered on the grounds. A cleanup allowed the plan to proceed.
The attractions already scheduled include a Cuban art exhibit and two-time Grammy Award-winning performer Marlow Rosado. No seat is far from the stage.
“The audience is going to connect with the performers more passionately, with more intimacy,” Ushe promised. “They will truly experience a show.”