Art And Sustainability For Proposed Downtown Development [AUDIO]

The Wyoming Community Development Authority steps outside its normal job description as it seeks funding for a Public Art Project for Casper.

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Applying to the National Endowment for the Arts may be unusual for the WCDA, but creating an affordable housing project to go with an art project is not…

”The opportunity that presented itself was a program through the National Endowment for the Arts called, “Our Town”, which is to basically create public art that would be consistent with the theme of Wyoming and of Casper.”

David Haney, Executive Director of the Wyoming Community Development Authority, says when Grimshaw Associates purchased the K-C apartments, owner, Steve Grimshaw, and the WCDA began looking for something different to do on the lots off of Collins near downtown. They wanted to do something that addresses sustainability, walkability, affordability, but also something that ties in the arts. And so was born, what they are calling, the “Sunshine project”. Haney says, if they get the grant, the process of defining just what the art project would look like will, in itself, become a community project …

“Our process will be to allow the community to participate in that and to identify that.  And it helps us to organize selection ultimately of a theme and an artist.”

Results of the initial 100 thousand dollar grant application to the National Endowment for the Arts comes back in May.

Construction of the housing project, Haney assures, is not contingent upon the NEA grant.

Demolition of the K-C apartments should start shortly, he says, with construction complete within about a year.