Hellmann Creative Center receives grant for outdoor community space


The National Endowment for the Arts recently announced more than $82 million in grants awarded to help fund local arts projects and partnerships, and three Cincinnati area organizations, including the Center for Great Neighborhoods, received a total of $45,000.
 
The Center received $10,000 to help design the public space outside of the Hellmann Creative Center, a new creative placemaking hub in Covington. Hellmann Creative Commons will be a gathering space for the community that will further help tie the arts and the neighborhood together.
 
Not only did the Center preserve and repurpose a vacant building, but it’s also working to make the arts a more prominent part of the conversation in Northern Kentucky. Covington is a city of makers, which the Center wants is celebrating through business mentoring and a May 21 public event.
 
The Hellman Center grant will go toward the first phase of the project, which includes gathering community input and working with design professionals. Once fully funded, Hellmann Creative Commons will feature sculptures designed and installed by local artists from a new apprenticeship program that will collaborate with established artists doing a one-month residency in Covington.
 
Work on the Hellmann Creative Center is to be completed this summer. Stay tuned the Center for Greater Neighborhoods’ Facebook page for ways you can give your input into the design of the outdoor space.
 
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Caitlin Koenig is a Cincinnati transplant and 2012 grad of the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. She's the department editor for Soapbox Media and currently lives in Northside with her husband, Andrew, and their three furry children. Follow Caitlin on Twitter at @caite_13.