“Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan sees a growing number of arts centers in the Denver metro area that are making their municipalities better places to live,” writes Mark Rinaldi in last Tuesday’s (7/26) Denverite (Colorado). “The way he sees it, the arts could do a lot for Aurora, too. His proposal to build an arts center in the city—an endeavor in the tens of millions of dollars that would give symphonies, dance troupes and theater companies a place to perform—would also help the city pitch itself to developers scouting out sites for new housing projects and corporations looking for attractive places to relocate.… There’s a solid economic argument at hand. The national advocacy group Americans for the Arts reports that the average arts attendee spend about $25 per event beyond the cost of admission on things like dining, parking and hotels. Surveys by the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts puts audience spending regionally at $926 million and the number of arts-related jobs at nearly 11,000.” The article compares “what art centers do for communities beyond art” in several Colorado towns, with effects including increased real-estate values, wider accessibility to the arts for underserved populations, and a greater sense of community.
Posted August 1, 2016
