Wanted: Help With Reinventing UArts’s Iconic Main Building
Whether you have time, skills, ideas or money to contribute, the folks who transformed Bok are ready to take your suggestions.
Scout plans to turn the University of the Arts’ iconic John Haviland- and William Strickland-designed main building into work and display space for the city’s artists. Exactly how it will do that could be up to you. / Photograph by Beyond My Ken via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
By now you should have heard that, to the delight of just about everyone hereabouts, Lindsey Scannapieco’s Scout company has won the bidding for the University of the Arts’s landmark building, Dorrance Hamilton Hall, and the Frank Furness-designed residence hall attached to its rear.
Even Dwight City, the company Scout outbid for the property, said nice things to the Inquirer about Scout’s plans for the two buildings. And those plans are no less ambitious than the ones it had for Bok, the former vocational-technical high school in East Passyunk that Scout turned into a small business hub, makerspace, and community resource, topped by the best rooftop bar in Philadelphia.
(Count me among the pleased as well, for I had predicted that Mr. Avenue of the Arts, Carl Dranoff — or someone like him — would buy it and turn the whole thing into a luxury condo. No disrespect to Dranoff, who is a quality developer, but Scout offered a much better and more fitting use for these two landmarks.)
With these buildings, Scout aims to do Bok one better in support of the city’s artistic community. In addition to studio, workshop and gallery space, the Furness Hall dormitory will become subsidized apartments for artists. This component made Scout’s plan stand out from Dwight City’s nearly identical plan, and it no doubt helped Scannapieco sweeten her originally identical bid for the property.
Dwight City had planned to turn Furness Hall into market-rate “affordable luxury” apartments that artists could occupy at discounted rents. Dwight City had also indicated a restaurant would be part of its proposal; while Scout did not mention one explicitly, it’s still possible that their finished product will include some sort of dining place.
And this is where you come in. While Scout has fleshed out the big picture, it wants your help with the many little things that will make this project work.
Are there specific uses for the building you think should be included? Do you have skills or time to contribute to the project? Or money, for that matter: Scout needs to repay the bridge loan that helped it win the bidding within 60 days.
Whatever you might have to offer, Scout’s ready to accept it. Scout has a form on its website seeking to learn the various ways members of the larger community may contribute to its mission of creating a supportive community for Philly’s artists.
Scout director of development Everett Abitbol says he’s heartened by what Scout has received through the form already.
“We’re overwhelmed,” he says. “We launched that link on Tuesday morning, and as of this morning [Thursday, February 27th], we’ve gotten more than 100 submissions.
“It’s pretty heartwarming,” he says of the outpouring of community support after the sale was announced.
Want to add your support to this project? You can do so by filling out the form at the Scout website. But beware: I experienced brief difficulty connecting to the site this afternoon. I don’t know whether the problem was on their end or mine, but if you don’t get through to Scout’s UArts Hamilton Hall suggestion box, don’t give up. Lindsey Scannapieco didn’t.
