Beacon Council Backs Arts-Based Rehab

City will submit application for state funding 

The Beacon City Council unanimously agreed on Monday (April 1) to support an application for state grant funding for GarageWORKS, an artists’ studio and gallery that will be constructed at 3-5 Henry St., formerly an auto repair shop. 

Beacon artist Michael Braden purchased the one-story building, which was constructed in the early 1940s, in February 2023 for $825,000. He plans to convert the one-time Studebaker showroom into a carbon-neutral, solar-powered studio for himself and three other artists. It will also function as a gallery for exhibits and a venue for public events, including for students, he said.

Braden has received a $2 million grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and will now ask the state for $1.5 million through its Restore New York program, which in its latest round of funding will invest $60 million in municipalities’ efforts to rehabilitate and restore blighted structures. 

The asbestos-filled roof on the building will be replaced with a photovoltaic energy system; hot water will be supplied by solar power; and contaminants left over from decades of automotive uses will be remediated, Braden said. The deteriorated sidewalks surrounding the building will be repaired, with street trees and landscaping added. Once restored, the property will remain on the city’s tax roll. 

Although the Restore New York grant is for privately owned buildings, the application must be submitted by a municipality, which is why Braden approached the City Council last month. Braden said he envisions the project as a way to engage Beacon’s art community while educating the public on environmental sustainability. 

“It’s meant to be a model of how to do a building,” he told the council during its March 11 workshop. The new funding would help “balance the books” for the $7.3 million project, which Braden said he is financing through “a huge amount of my own personal resources.”

Braden and Sophie Henderson, a consultant who previously worked on two successful Restore New York applications in Hudson, prepared the submission.

City Administrator Chris White said he “saw this as an opportunity that didn’t use any of our financial resources and very little of our time. I wanted to get the experience under our belt and then we could assess where we go next year” if there are similar proposals.

Empire State Development, which administers the program, is expected to announce the grant winners in the fall. 

Before voting on Monday to back the application, the council held a public hearing on the project. Noting its “primary, premium location” on the corner of South Chestnut and Henry streets, in Beacon’s off-Main Street “Transitional” zone, resident Clark Gebman said he felt the site could provide up to 30 affordable housing units. 

“You’re being asked to endorse this one person’s vision,” he said. While the artistic community is important in Beacon, “is it really more important than providing affordable housing?”

In 2021, a developer proposed replacing the structure with a three-story, 16-apartment building with retail space but the project did not progress. Braden said during the March workshop that he had considered housing at the site but felt previous proposals had been poorly received and that there is “a real shortage of high-quality spaces for professional artists.” 

Three other speakers on Monday supported the project, including Kathleen Griffin, who said she moved to the region for its creative energy. “I’m part of a very large cohort of people who made their life in New York City as an artistic professional and came to the Hudson Valley for opportunities like the one being proposed,” she said. “It’s impossible to quantify what having the arts brings to people, particularly at-risk children. As a teenager, it was exactly opportunities like the ones being created [at GarageWORKS] that took me out of one situation and opened the doors to something totally different.”

The state says it will prioritize awarding grants in economically distressed communities. Although Beacon doesn’t qualify, GarageWORKS’ previous NYSERDA award works in its favor because the program also emphasizes projects that leverage other state or federal redevelopment funds, Henderson said. 

“As we further our progress, we become eligible for some things and lose eligibility for others,” such as the state’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative awards, explained Mayor Lee Kyriacou. “The ability to find new sources and new ways to leverage grant money, which is a way that we’ve always been really successful — we may come up with some new ways to do it, and this may be one of them.”