An Arts ‘Magnet’

Not so long ago, downtown Norman was a collection of empty, aging building rotating business in and out with frightening regularity.

With the help of a $3 million renovation and commitment by local artists, Norman’s downtown area has turned into thriving arts district generating revenues and attention.

Signs hawking space for lease have been replaced with new storefronts sporting an artistic flair-literally.

Norman Arts Council Executive Director Stephanie Royse said the downtown arts influence has spread from its early roots with the historic Sooner Theatre to the more modern galleries and businesses.

“I think what’s happened is you’ve had a few groups start out downtown and now it’s become a magnet,” Royse said, “It was really almost serendipitous. People started recognizing what was going on. A lot of it was just good luck that a lot of things starting happening at the same time.”

The arts pull to the downtown area has become so strong that even Royse’s group relocated there recently from the Sarkey’s annex just four blocks east.

Over the last several years, Norman’s downtown area has seen an influx of galleries, artists and shops featuring artistic creations. The city recognized the area’s emerging influence and lent a public hand by tearing up sidewalks, repaving Main Street and basically renovating the general appearance of the almost half-mile stretch of Oklahoma’s third largest city.

Now visitors to downtown Norman usually can find something going on centered around the arts year-round.

“It’s gotten to be a lot easier sell,” said John Sartori, marketing director for the Norman Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. It’s starting to come around.”

Winterfest has become an annual event that brings locals and tourists in to celebrate the season and local businesses.

The Norman Gallery Association also sponsors winter and spring Art Walks, which take people on a walking tour of the 10 downtown galleries. The galleries open their doors at no charge to the public.

The city’s Medieval Fair has grown exponentially, annually drawing tourists outside the state’s borders. And, the Mayfair Arts Festival, sponsored by the Assistance League of Norman, draws an estimated 50,000 people to the downtown area each spring.

The Norman arts fare is, with out question, electric, offering modern works in a variety of forms to the timeless classics by the masters.

Located just north of Main Street at 110 E. Tonhawa is The Crucible Foundry. The Carey Lumber Building, circa 1881, houses the foundry, which specializes in bronze sculptures. Visitors can attend a pouring where artisans melt down 22-pound bricks of solid metal and form the 2,000-degree material into works of art.

Beside the foundry is the Crucible Gallery and sculpture Garden.

Although not on Main Street, the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma is just a couple of stones throws away.

Norma’s arts image got a serious boosts when it was announced in 2000 the museum would be home to the single most important collection of French Impressionism ever given to an American public university.

The gift included 22 paintings and 11 works on paper from artists such as Degas, Gauguin, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrect, Van Gogh, Vuillard and others.

The pieces went on display last month in the museums’ new 26,000-square-foot Mary and Howard Lester Wing.

Coming to downtown in July will be the Byzantium Bindery, which will specialize in manuscript binding, as well as fine book and map conservation.

Encompass Interiors specializes in the creation and sale o unique furniture pieces, but also has space set aside for artworks and high craft items for sale.

Chevaun Williams is a local photographer who not only makes a living capturing the images of local residents, but also features the work of metro photographers in her gallery at 221 E. Main.

MainSite Contemporary Art also features the works of today’s emerging artist.

For Sherri Rogers, executive director of the Norman Convention and Visitors Bureau, the increased focus on the arts just helps make her job easier.

“I love selling Norman Rogers said. “I’m born and raised here and it’s an honor to be able to sell your hometown. When we sell Norman to outsiders, we sell the whole product.”

The product includes the university –with its rich athletic heritage – the city’s growing economy and above- average school district, as well as a downtown that Rogers believes just drips with the quaint charm of a world gone by.

“There’s a charm here that brings us back to the way we want to be,” Rogers said. “We have a nostalgia downtown that people expect of a real, true main street.”

The newest addition to the Norman downtown scene will be a chocolate factory, located just east of the Vista restaurant. The artistic renditions at this chocolate coffee bar are edible.

“Any more it seems like this is what the tourist wants,” Rogers said. “They want that escape.”

Later this month, Norman’s convention and visitors bureau will host its first Sooner Travel Exposition at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds, Rogers said the show is geared toward educating tour bus owners and operators about the attractions Norman has to offer. And, Rogers said, the arts are a tremendous asset in trying to entice tourist to Norman.

She also said she and her staff aren’t afraid to use the university’s athletics draw to help sell the arts. The group has started a program called Culture to Kickoff, which highlight’s Norman’s artistic endeavors to out-of-town fans visiting of fall Saturdays.

It’s a good pairing, considering the economics impact of the OU athletics program is estimated to be about $60 million annually.

One way to get people down to the area was to have them live there.

Republic Bank and trust President Chuck Thompson coordinated the downtown revitalization steering committee that helped retool Norman’s zoning and habitation laws, allowing for loft apartments and downtown housing.

The group applied for and received a $700,000 streetscape enhancement grant that-with the city’s help-turned into a $3 million enhancement of the area.

“That’s really made a big change in the urban density of downtown,” Thompson said. “That’s mad a big change in the attractiveness of a lot of businesses down there. The real magic is the improvement in the ability to increase the economic viability and livability of downtown. It has really come a long way.”

Car in point, Thompson’s bank repossesses and sold a downtown building for $125,000 a few years back. That same building underwent a remodel and appraised for more than $400,000 a year ago.

He said not too long ago downtown commercial space was renting for around $4 a square foot. Now space is renting for closer to $10 and $12 per foot, with more high-end retail businesses coming in.

“There’s some real dynamic opportunities that are driving people in,” Thompson said, indicating one of the top draws was the arts.

Rogers concurred.

“It fits down there. We’re going back to what it once was.”