New Staffing and Operations

Asian Arts Initiative, a multidisciplinary and community-based arts center in Philadelphia's Chinatown, invested in new staffing and operations for its three-story, 24,000-square-foot facility. Renovations already made to the building's ground floor have resulted in the creation of a storefront gallery, a black box-style performance space, and a media lab for video production. Asian Arts has hired a facility management firm to oversee building operations, as well as a facility manager. Additional legal, marketing, and administrative support have developed the space into a multi-tenant arts facility, where peer artists and organizations collaborate and work together at the crossroads of contemporary art and community engagement. Eventually, rental income gained from affordable workspace for up to 25 individual artists and as many as eight organizations will provide Asian Arts with the financial stability to more actively pursue and develop its own artistic projects. This project has helped Asian Arts Initiative to raise over $500,000 for the development of the third floor of its space, including grants from the Ford Foundation and ArtPlace, and a grant from the Kresge Foundation for maintenance reserves. [fn]Management grants, through the Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative, were awarded from 2009 through 2013.[/fn]