Vancouver musician Veronica “V” Tyler Christie has a vivid memory of her first encounter with the Vancouver Arts Hub.

V, the founder of the Beat Rush Big Band, a 20-piece band that plays jazz arrangements of video game and anime-themed music, had been trying to find an affordable rehearsal space when she walked into the 50,000-squarefoot community library turned city-owned arts and culture center at 1007 E. Mill Plain Blvd.

“I thought it was still a library, so my first thought was, ‘Where are all of the books?’ ” she said.

Instead, she had discovered a space where local artists have been gathering since 2024 to create, rehearse, educate and build community connections.

The arts hub, with its open, flexible spaces, proved to be the ideal spot for V’s big band rehearsal needs and gave her the space she needed to branch out creatively. In June, she launched the inaugural Vancouver Games and Music Festival, a one-day event that drew about 300 video game music fans.

The arts hub has hosted dozens of artists like V over the past two years, but the building is overdue for a revamp.

City officials are set to approve a $22 million arts hub project that will not only extend the 63-year-old building’s lifespan but create flexible spaces for artists, cultural organizations, art students and members of the public.

In 2024, city officials greenlit a $2.57 million construction project to replace the building’s roof and upgrade its chiller system. Now, officials are considering a plan to improve the building’s accessibility, safety and energy systems; update existing multipurpose spaces; and add new restrooms, a studio theater, multipurpose spaces, a flexible gallery-event area and shared workshop.

In August, city staff and consultants presented preliminary design ideas to the Vancouver City Council and said input from the arts hub’s users showed a need to improve the building while preserving flexible spaces, affordability, and inclusive and equitable programming.

David Perlick, the city’s director of parks, recreation and cultural services, and Stacey Donovan, the city’s cultural services manager, said the team’s research also showed that the city would benefit from hiring a single nonprofit to run the center’s day-to-day operations while the city maintains the facility, supports operating costs and defines the center’s future direction.

They said the team looked into five comparable facilities, including the Multnomah Arts Center in Southwest Portland, three centers in California and another in Virginia, to understand what makes this type of public-private arts center partnership successful.

“We’ve learned a lot from the creative community since the initial activation in 2024,” Donovan said.

The majority of existing arts hub users, she said, want to see “increased capacity, better accessibility, increased safety and spaces that can adapt to new users.”

‘She has a good vision’

In early 2027, city leaders will select a nonprofit operator to oversee the arts hub.

Many of the current arts hub users hope city officials will retain Christine A. Richardson, founder and executive director of theARTScentered, the nonprofit organization that has run the Vancouver Arts Hub’s daily operations since early 2024.

“I want Christine to stay,” said Anna Cruz, the founder and artistic director of Vancouver Ballet Folklórico . “She’s really brought the community together and found artists looking for spaces. She has a good vision and is good at collaboration.”

Cruz’s 14-year-old Vancouver Ballet Folklórico celebrates Mexican culture through dance and boasts eight instructors and 38 dancers ages 6 to 55 years old. The group was one of the first to utilize the Vancouver Arts Hub and still practices there twice a week.

V agreed that Richardson is the best person to lead the arts hub.

During her first fateful encounter with the arts hub, V said Richardson explained the center’s goal of providing an inclusive, accessible and affordable space for local artists.

“I was encouraged when I heard about theARTScentered’s radical hospitality model — that I could pay what I could,” V said.

Like V and Cruz, Vancouver art instructor Pamela Sue Johnson also believes Richardson needs to continue overseeing operations at the arts center.

“Christine Richardson is what makes the arts hub special,” Johnson said. “Her vision and dedicated leadership is why the arts hub is thriving and flourishing to the degree that it is. She can do more of what she shines at with adequate funding and resources.”

Richardson, a 1988 Fort Vancouver High School graduate who attended art school in Portland before working for the Portland Opera and then the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis — where she oversaw 25 employees and ran the theater’s extensive costume department — has been instrumental in creating the current artistic community at the arts hub.

“We know we’re the right nonprofit to be spearheading this,” Richardson said. “And we hope to continue doing that work.”

‘No other comparable spaces’

Artists who use the arts hub said Vancouver has no equivalent space.

Before coming to the arts hub in 2024, Cruz’s Mexican dance group rehearsed at River City Church on East Fourth Plain Boulevard. They appreciated the space but were limited by the church’s carpeted floors. One of the first things Richardson did when she got the keys to the arts hub in January 2024 was install a quality dance studio floor that could accommodate all dance mediums — including the Vancouver Ballet Folklórico dancers’ shoes, which have small nails hammered into them to create a sharp, percussive sound.

“There are no other comparable spaces,” Cruz said. “Other churches might be willing to let you practice, but with other flooring, we wouldn’t be able to use our dance shoes.”

And then there are the additional costs.

“Other rehearsal spaces charge $200 per day,” Cruz said. “There’s no way we can afford that. I’m not charging my families. They pay a small stipend, but we use that to celebrate the dancers two or three times a year.”

Johnson teaches beginner adult watercolor and mixed-media classes at the Vancouver Arts Hub and said her demographic is mostly older women who need access to a comfortable space with plenty of parking. The arts hub, she said, easily meets those needs without being costprohibitive.

“TheARTScentered keeps it affordable, so a teaching artist like me can afford to teach there,” Johnson said.

It also keeps the classes affordable for beginner art students, Johnson said, telling the story of a student who approached her at the end of a class to thank her for keeping the art classes affordable for older people on fixed incomes.

“I know of no other spaces where I can teach and offer what I offer for mature students who need accessibility and affordability,” Johnson said. “There are a number of wonderful, creative spaces scattered around Vancouver, yet either parking is challenging or the spaces are too small or too public for creating a meaningful art experience.”

As for the upcoming remodel, Johnson hopes city leaders will truly listen to the artists and students who have been using the arts hub.

“Talk to artists about affordability and accessibility and about what is realistic in today’s economy,” Johnson urged city officials. “It would be a wonderful thing to have the Arts Hub space humming with studio, gallery (and) creative spaces that allow artists of all disciplines to have access to create, lead and build creative community.”

Inclusive and accessible

Richardson has tried to make the Vancouver Arts Hub as inclusive as possible. It’s an effort that has paid off for many local artists.

“One of my favorite aspects of the Arts Hub is its accessibility,” said Vancouver resident Dawn States, a disabled dance artist and scholar whose work focuses on the intersection of dance and disability. “When I think about access, there are a lot of factors that go beyond the entrance to the building. There is also affordability, adaptation and feeling welcomed and accepted in a space.”

TheARTScentered and Vancouver Arts Hub have been able to provide that type of accessibility for States and her dance students.

“The space has been incredible for me as both an artist and educator,” States said. “I was able to use the space to rehearse for my piece in the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival (and) host classes here for other dancers with disabilities and offer the classes on a sliding scale.”

Retired optometrist Larry Wan of Vancouver leads a weekly woodshop seminar at the Washington State School for the Blind. When Richardson reached out to him earlier this year to see if Wan’s woodshop students might be interested in taking part in a celebration of sculpture at the Vancouver Arts Hub, Wan thought it was a great opportunity.

“All of the students have a significant visual defect,” Wan said. “And, historically, a lot of these kids have been told ‘no’ or put in a corner. Now, they’re in a (woodshop) program where they get to use some very dangerous tools, and we tell them, ‘Yes, you can.’ It’s given them an opportunity to explore a different part of their brain. To have a skill and an avenue to show things off.”

Wan’s students worked together to create a table that showcased the life cycle of wood for the Vancouver Arts Hub’s Celebration of Sculpture show on June 5.

“The kids were pretty excited about it,” Wan said. “It gave them confidence. Now, they want to continue doing collaborative projects, little monuments to their time here.”

Cruz said she just hopes the Vancouver Arts Hub remains affordable and accessible for local artists like herself and her dancers.

“We hope the arts center continues to be our home,” Cruz said. “It’s the best place and the best opportunity we’ve had.”

Kelly Moyer: 360-735- 4674; kelly.moyer@columbian. com

“I know of no other spaces where I can teach and offer what I offer for mature students who need accessibility and affordability.”

Pamela Sue Johnson
Art instructor