Newspaper Page Text
Arts brings workspace,
housing to College Park
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
PushPush
affordable
By Isadora Pennington
PushPush Arts, an innovative arts
incubator that has been promoting and
supporting the arts in Atlanta for 25 years,
is nearing completion of an exciting new
development in downtown College Park.
ION College Park is an adaptive reuse
arts campus offering support and structure
to artists in the form of affordable housing,
art studios, galleries, stages, and community
art spaces.
PushPush Arts was founded in 1997
by artists Tim Habeger and Shelby Hofer.
Originally named PushPush Theater, the
husband and wife pair has fostered and
supported thousands of artists, projects, and
films over the years.
PushPush Arts was first housed in the
FloatAway Building in Morningside before
expanding into a larger location in Decatur.
Today, they are preparing to launch their
biggest venture yet: a nearly 23,000-square-
foot property in College Park.
Defining Moments
Throughout PushPush Arts’ long history,
there have been plenty of defining moments.
In a 2010 survey, 80% of their artists were
able to bike or walk to the facility. When
they asked again in 2019 that number had
dropped to 10%. This set off alarm bells for
Habeger and Hofer.
“All of our artists were moving out
because of the affordability problem,”
said Habeger. As a result, the artists had
diminished access to their facility and
programming.
For the team at PushPush Arts, access is
paramount. It’s central to everything they
do and what they stand for. After realizing
that they were not able to serve their artists
as well in their location, they started looking
for a better space that would be more central
to their artistic base.
Cherie Ong from Good Places, one
of PushPush Art’s community partners,
suggested that they consider creating an
adaptive reuse art space on the grounds of
the 125-year-old College Park First United
Methodist Church. The property was too
large for the church’s current needs and
instead of selling, they opted to partner with
PushPush Arts in the imagining of a new
comprehensive arts campus on the site.
Comprised of four buildings on a
campus that is accessible to MARTA, ION
College Park is also conveniently located
just minutes from the airport. The property
is within walking distance of downtown
College Park as well as the upcoming mixed-
use 6 West development.
“We created this plan to build a
welcoming center for the arts in College
Park,” said Habeger. “That’s where a lot of
our artists were coming from anyway, and
the southwest corner of Atlanta was woefully
underserved for the fine arts. So that’s where
we started four years ago.”
Residents renting or owning property in
the arts complex will have free and low-cost
access to workshops, events, performances,
live music, art exhibits, and comedy shows,
just to name a few. Both residents and those
who live in the surrounding neighborhoods
will be able to come together to develop a
lasting sense of community centered around
art.
“A resident on our campus is not only
a participant in creating this cultural scene
but they are also homeowners, or living and
working affordably, in a way that doesn’t
push people out but instead invites people
in,” explained Kaleigh Malloy, Development
and Marketing Manager for PushPush Arts.
Time To Move
As renovation and construction efforts
near their completion, the team at PushPush
Arts will begin moving to the property at
1805 Harvard Ave. in late summer or early
fall. The opening of the cafe, art gallery,
performance space, and six artist studios
will soon follow. Meanwhile, the affordable
housing building, which will supply 60 one-
and two-bedroom apartments, gallery space,
a workroom, and a community center, is set
to have a soft opening sometime before the
holiday season.
Ultimately our mission has always been
to amplify artists through their work with
inclusion and programmatic operations,”
explained Malloy. “Our vision has been
to create a hub for artists where they can
sustain themselves creatively and financially.
This project is the actualization of that.”
Despite the fact that College Park is
home to a significant artist population,
there has never been an arts center in the
city limits. “We have seen an outpouring of
support from the community and Mayor
Motley Broom,” said Malloy. “It’s an
extraordinary group effort.”
Habeger explained that as they developed
the program they considered models
of organizational structure from other
industries such as the software industry.
They were interested in encouraging,
fostering, and then retaining talent.
“We don’t want to keep losing artists
to cities where they can sustain themselves
better,” said Malloy. “We want to invest in
IP and in content by artists here in Atlanta.
We want to keep them here, produce
their work here, and allow artists to have
upward mobility through opportunities for
homeownership and opportunities to create.
Not just to survive but to thrive.”
When using terms like open-sourced,
Habeger clarified that the concept essentially
allows access for the public to get involved
at every level. From a project’s genesis to its
completion, PushPush Arts invites creatives
and innovators to participate as volunteers,
interns, apprentices, collaborators,
professional partners, or sponsors. “There is
always an access point,” said Habeger.
Get Involved
PushPush Arts makes big things happen
by working with key players from their
extensive network of community partners
both locally and abroad. Some notable
collaborators for ION College Park include
Good Places, an organization that focuses on
neighborhood revitalization in community-
centered real estate development.
Tapestry Development, a qualified
low-income housing tax credit developer,
is dedicated to the preservation of low-
income housing in Georgia, Alabama, and
South Carolina. The KNDGM Group is
a majority Black-owned developer focused
on breaking cycles of poverty in the face of
gentrification. The design and development
firm eightvillage focuses on place-based
ecologies that are sustainable and empathetic
in nature. The College Park First United
Methodist Church is the first-ever church
in College Park, and they will remain a key
partner in the ION College Park project.
“We believe that there are things we
can do to create great content here,” he
continued. “The South has got something
to say. Atlanta can sit at the table with any
city in the world to talk about race, equity,
a troubled past... everything that any major
city deals with. Atlanta really has a lot to
offer, and for the arts, we believe we can
accelerate that and help to give them a first-
class cultural city to live and work in.”
If you’d like to get involved with ION
College Park, follow along with progress at
pushpusharts.com. Studio spaces will soon
be available to rent and interested parties
can email info@pushpusharts.com for more
details.
241 JULY 2023
RoughDraftAtlanta.com